>But what is totally unclear to me is, what might be the real reasons for the war. Different reasons have been proposed, including a quest for power, for petroleum, and a war against the Euro (apparently Iraq had started to make transactions in Euros instead of US$), religious prejudice. But it is hard to tell which is the real reasoning behind the war.

I find it hard to believe that any intelligent person with any degree of knowledge regarding the US would believe any of the "reasons" that you outline. Quest for power? Like we need more? For petroleum? There's enough available on the market right now, and most of ours comes from South America right now anyway. War against the Euro? Are you kidding? Religeous prejudice? Gimme a break. There's a huge section of the US population that's Muslim, and Iraq is hardly the center of that faith. Why not just glaze Mecca and be done with it?

The truth of the matter is that America (and the UK) spent billions of dollars squashing a third-rate dictator because he would not prove that he no longer possessed extremely dangerous weapons that he previously admitted having. Weapons that enemies of this country would love to get their hands on, and would cause massive loss of life if they did. Anyone who believes anything else is wrong.