Quote:The US armed forces don't take thorns out of sides. What they do they do for reasons. The invasion was about oil. The neo cons thought they could sink OPEC by ramping up production. Of course production slowed after the invasion (foresight was never their strongest suit--remember when we'd be welcomed with flowers and hugs lol?).


From the wiki I posted already:


1. 2008 Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain was forced to clarify his comments suggesting the Iraq war involved U.S. reliance on foreign oil. "My friends, I will have an energy policy that we will be talking about, which will eliminate our dependence on oil from the Middle East that will prevent us from having ever to send our young men and women into conflict again in the Middle East," McCain said. To clarify his comments, McCain explained that "the word 'again' was misconstrued, I want us to remove our dependency on foreign oil for national security reasons, and that's all I mean."


2. Bush's Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill said that Bush's first two National Security Council meetings included a discussion of invading Iraq. He was given briefing materials entitled "Plan for post-Saddam Iraq," which envisioned peacekeeping troops, war crimes tribunals, and divvying up Iraq's oil wealth. A Pentagon document dated March 5, 2001 was titled "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield contracts," and included a map of potential areas for exploration.


^^that's before 911 btw


3. In July 2003, the Polish foreign minister, Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, said, "We have never hidden our desire for Polish oil companies to finally have access to sources of commodities." This remark came after a group of Polish firms had just signed a deal with Kellogg, Brown and Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton. Cimoszewicz stated that access to Iraq's oilfields "is our ultimate objective".


Remember that no-bid contract awarded to Halliburton?


4. One report by BBC journalist Gregory Palast citing unnamed "insiders" alleged that the U.S. "called for the sell-off of all of Iraq's oil fields"[112] and planned for a coup d'état in Iraq long before September 11.[112] It was also alleged by the BBC's Greg Palast that the "new plan was crafted by neo-conservatives intent on using Iraq's oil to destroy the OPEC cartel through massive increases in production above OPEC quotas",[112] but in reality Iraq oil production decreased following the Iraq War.


The idea^^


5. Chuck Hagel, the current United States Secretary of Defense, while speaking at the Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law in 2008 defended Greenspan's comments with, "People say we're not fighting for oil. Of course we are."[114] General John Abizaid, CENTCOM commander from 2003 until 2007, said of the Iraq war during a round table discussion at Stanford University in 2008, "Of course it's about oil, we can't really deny that."


But, please, feel free to believe the propaganda. This is America after all.


6. Many critics have focused upon administration officials' past relationship with energy sector corporations. Both the President and Vice President were formerly CEOs of oil and oil-related companies such as Arbusto, Harken Energy, Spectrum 7, and Halliburton. Before the 2003 invasion of Iraq and even before the War on Terror, the administration had prompted anxiety over whether the private sector ties of cabinet members (including National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, former director of Chevron, and Commerce Secretary Donald Evans, former head of Tom Brown Inc.) would affect their judgment on energy policy.


What do they about oil anyways?


7. Iraq holds the world's fifth-largest proven oil reserves at 141 billion barrels (2.24×1010 m3),[121] with increasing exploration expected to enlarge them beyond 200 billion barrels (3.2×1010 m3).[122] For comparison, Venezuela—the largest proven source of oil in the world—has 298 billion barrels (4.74×1010 m3) of proven oil reserves.[121]


Organizations such as the Global Policy Forum (GPF) have asserted that Iraq's oil is "the central feature of the political landscape" there, and that as a result of the 2003 invasion of Iraq|2003 invasion,"'friendly' companies expect to gain most of the lucrative oil deals that will be worth hundreds of billions of dollars in profits in the coming decades." According to GPF, U.S. influence over the 2005 Constitution of Iraq has made sure it "contains language that guarantees a major role for foreign companies."


So, yea.

 

That was a lot of work putting together that list. 
I have no doubt the US government explores every possibility in foreign policy planning scenarios. We probably had numerous discussions about the best way to do a first strike attack against the Soviet Union too. That doesn't mean we were anywhere close to considering it a real option.

 

However, I was referring to pre-war public statements by the US government. If you have a link to a pre-war press release quoting a government official that states the US will offset the war cost by selling Iraqi oil, then I'd like to see it. I was only describing what I remember, and could very well be wrong.

 

 
When I spoke of a thorn in our side, I meant that the only alternative the US government would consider was to indefinitely keep troops in Kuwait (not invading Iraq would have still been about oil), continue to patrol the no-fly zone, and hope that Clinton's CIA director was wrong about WMDs. That's a pretty big thorn.

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