>You do realize, I hope, that oil under U.S. soil "belongs to the people of the U.S." and that President Bush means the same thing - no more and no less - for the oil under Iraq to belong to the people of Iraq.
>In other words... oil will be extracted by multi-national companies and those companies will pay royalties [to the Iraqi people]. No more, no less. The companies will get the world market prices and the Iraqi government ('people') will get FIXED royalties. The Iraqi government ('people') will collect big money but multi-national companies will collect HUGE HUGE HUGE PROFITS!

The Iraqi people are free to do with the oil what they wish. If they choose to award contracts to multi-national companies, that is their perogative. If they choose to try and extract the oil on their own, they can do that too. If they want to let the oil sit in the ground for 50 years until we really, really need it, they can do that.

>Now President Bush is already on record as stating that all existing contracts with the Iraqi government will be honoured. He really didn't have to say so because it is a condition of international (contract) law, but he did and I presume that it was to try to bribe the French and the Russians into submission for his "plan".

I have not seen where Bush has said that anywhere. I am not denying it, but you know me, I will have to see it in print on a reputable news site before I believe it :-).

Neither you nor I are experts on international law, but I have a feeling that when the government changes, they may not have to honor previous contracts.

>Finally, the Iraqi people, AT THIS MOMENT, are paying less than 20¢ per gallon for gasoline according to reports I saw on both CNN and CBS. I wonder what they will be paying once democracy is established in Iraq????

No one really knows, but I can be sure that a lot of the oil profits won't be going to Saddam :-).