Ed Rasimus wrote:

On Thu, 5 Feb 2004 09:23:26 -0500, "George Z. Bush"
wrote:


You're entitled to your opinion. There certainly have been lots of reasons
advanced for launching this war and, as quickly as one proves to be untrue,
another one is presented until it, too, proves to be untrue, followed by another
one.....etc. You may be gullible enough to believe what you are told by the
government, but after the second unsubstantiated reason, I no longer believe
anything they have to say on the subject. Just between the two of us, I've
already concluded to my own satisfaction that the real reasons we entered this
war were (1) to complete the Gulf War, left undone by the President's father,
(2) to topple Sadaam Hussein for his attempted assassination of the President's
father, and (3) to secure de facto control over the sea of oil on which Iraq
sits. Since none of these reasons would have sat well with the public if
presented, alternative reasons had to be contrived. Unfortunately, each of
those alternative reasons upon examination was shown to be quite obviously
contrived .

But, that's my take, and you're entitled to your own. However, I'd be willing
to bet that with the perfect vision provided by hindsight, history will
eventually accept one or all of my reasons as the true reason(s) for launching
this war rather than those offered by our government.

Since you acknowledge the perfection of hindsight, you might review
what we did after we took control of the sea of oil on which Iraq sits
in 1991. We turned control back over to Sadaam. We turned Kuwait back
over to the Kuwaitis (after we put out the fires for them.)

You might want to check who buys and uses Iraqi oil--the French and
the Russians mostly. Less than 5% of American oil purchases come from
Iraq. It mostly goes to Europe and N. Asia.

I might add that about 24% of US oil needs come from *all*
Mideast sources combined. A significant amount to be sure, but
hardly enough to bother with such expensive efforts at "control".

Saudi Arabia, Canada, Mexico and Venezuela are the top four
foreign providers. I suppose George will think we already
have SA's oil under our control, but how about the other three?

Surely we'd need to control those significant sources of oil.
Are those governments aware the US controls their oil? Or are
they our lapdogs, with overt control efforts unnecessary?


SMH