>>My son just read in the newspaper that Iraq on the one hand and France, Russia and China on the other hand signed a contract some years ago that their oilcompanies will be given all rights to exploit the Iraqi oilfields after the UN-restrictions have finished. Does this shed an interesting light on the standpoint of Chirac? Yes!
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>Peter,
>
>I don't think you are suggesting it, but could that mean that you've just described another reason why it was so important for the U.S. to get in there quickly and establish "ownership"?

Hi Jim,
I think that oil isn't the real, justifying, issue for the US and GB. And I don't think that Bush only had that contract in mind when he/they decided to go to war. Actually, I'm quite angry on France (Chirac). And the arguing of Frederic Steczycki is fallable (it's sophism, one big fallacy, using deceptive arguments). On the other hand, it may well be that the contract has been one of the influences on the voting behavior of France, Russia and China in the U.N..
In my private sphere I've recently sent emails to friends and relatives, asking them not to demonstrate anti-war.


>The U.S. is decidedly not a supporter of "nationalization", so who do you think will "own" the oil after the war?
>
>The "need" for this war was directly stated in a letter to President Clinton in 1998 and with the election of President Bush the authors of that letter were put into the positions of power that could materialize the war. They had a minor roadblock on their way to it when President Bush agreed to go through the U.N., so they destroyed that too to get their objective.
>
>We all can only hope now that this war is brief and that killing and maiming is minimized. Then we can all "follow the money".
>We can be confident that the Iraqi PEOPLE (banked "oil for food" money and new revenues from OIL) will pay for their own reconstruction and some reparations. We can be confident that the majority of those $$$ will be paid to allied corporations - "the spoils of war".
>
>With the letter-writer cabal in power we can expect the next target to make itself clear sooner rather than later, and if I was a middle-east country leader I would now be very very worried.