So, why did we invade Iraq?

[ck4829]

Oil?

Money?

Power?

Revenge for Saddam disgracing Poppy?

Fun?

[gratuitous]

1. Which way is the wind blowing?

Because the administration seems to have about 360 positions on that one.

[Squatch]

2. Biblical scripture fated it.

[whistle]

3. All of the above

[Greeby]

14. Ditto

So many forces and elements are needed to get behind a war for one to take place. And they all want something in return

[AlamoDemoc]

4. Because we profit from it ...we always profited from other nations resources (n/t)

[Moloch]

5. The thugs CURRENT reasoning...

is that we are fighting the war over there so we don't have to fight it here. :eyes:

Of course, all the terrorists wouldn't BE in Iraq if we hadn't illegally invaded it.. supposedly, this is what the neo-cons had in mind all along, which is, of course, why we had that arrogant sub-human chimp with the "mission accomplished" banner years ago.

[subterranean]

6. Bush said he was "tired of swatting flies."

So he decided to swat a hornet's nest.

[lapfog_1]

7. Mostly to establish military bases in a region

that the PNACers say we must dominate for their oil resources. And the Saudis didn't want us in the holy land. So Iraq was the next best choice. so we redeployed our previous cold war forces (Germany, Korea) into the new hot war zone, the ME. We also will need to counter India and China someday, so Afghanistan and Pakistan.

It's a Neocon thing.

[Solly Mack]

8. to make America safer, of course

snicker

[Hosnon]

9. Most likely multiple reasons but I heard a Republican say today that

something just HAD to be done to "shake up" the ME.

[WinkyDink]

10. Yes.

[Rex]

11. Because Saddam posed an imminent threat to the US with his

*cough* biological and chemical stockpile of weapons that we *Rummy* had irrefutable proof of in 2003! So sure were we that Dems went along and voted in the minority for the IWR. So sure that Saddam had pilot-less fighter drones and stockpiles of Weapons of Mass Destruction that we could NOT give the UN time to make a decision if it was true! Had to go in!

We had to make a pre-emptive strike on Iraq, to neutralize the threat of Saddam and his powerful weapons, that could result *Rice* in a mushroom cloud! Could I tell you a lie?!

Best thing was, *Bush* told us all that our military forces (that were woefully inferior in size to the task at hand), would be greeted with rose pedals! No lie! I heard a military general agree with it! We would be greeted as liberators! See not war! Peace and happiness!

Then it was, all major ground fighting had ended! Believe it or you're helping the terrorists win!

Any other reason they give, is to hide their lies.

[stillcool]

12. Pepe Escobar.....

with another excellent read...

Middle East Oct 27, 2006
THE ROVING EYE
'Stability First': Newspeak for rape of Iraq
By Pepe Escobar

The coalition of the drilling
World public opinion must switch to red alert. The real, not virtual, future of Iraq will be decided in December. The whole point is a new oil law - which is in fact a debt-for-oil program concocted and imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This is the point of the US invasion - a return on investment on the hundreds of billions of dollars of US taxpayers' money spent. It's not war as politics by other means; it's war as free-market opening by other means - full US access to the epicenter of the energy wars and the perfect geostrategic location for "taming", in the near future, both Russia and China.
Very few observers have detailed what's at stake. In US corporate media the silence is stratospheric.

No wonder: the Green Zone US Embassy colossus has always made sure that the US controls - via well-paid Iraqi servants - the Petroleum Ministry, as well as all key management posts in key Iraqi ministries. The draft hydrocarbon law was reviewed by the IMF, reviewed by Bodman and reviewed by Big Oil executives. It was not and it will not be reviewed by Iraqi civil society: that was left to the fractious Iraqi parliament - which can be largely bought for a fistful of dinars.
The Bush administration needs somebody to sign the law. The nation of Iraq as it emerged out of British imperial design is an artificial construct that can only be "tamed" by a hardcore strongman a la Saddam. It has to be "our" strongman, of course: when Saddam started to act independently he was smashed. Insistent rumors of a US-engineered coup to replace the hapless current premier Nuri al-Maliki have surfaced of late. Poor Maliki, if he clings to a minimum of integrity, can't possibly sign the oil law. Enter the Washington/Green Zone-backed strongman a la Saddam: a likely candidate is former interim premier Iyad Allawi, who ordered the destruction of Fallujah in late 2004.
No matter what happens in the US mid-term elections next month, this is the post-December scenario: Iraq enslaved by the IMF; Big Oil signing mega-lucrative production sharing agreements (PSAs); "partial" troop withdrawal; relentless guerrilla warfare; further disintegration; open road to partition.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HJ27Ak03.html
(Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing .)

[Junkdrawer]

13. It concerns oil...

For 50 years, Big Oil has been keeping the bulk of Iraqi oil off the market. That does two things:

1.) It keeps the price of oil high

2.) It saves the Iraqi oil for the day when Saudi oil runs out

[EFerrari]

15. Halliburton needed some cash to fix their asbestos problems.

Then, they needed a little more.

[TheCowsCameHome]

16. "Please stand by for the reason of the week. Thank you for inquiring"

[razors edge]

17. petrol, more precisely

the petro-dollar. Saddam was starting to accept euros for oil, that will not do.

Nixon took the US off the gold standard completely when the French kept cashing in dollars at the rate locked in at $35/oz, we got down to only 2 million Oz's or so and he shut them off. Maybe thats why they hate the French still to this day.

He set up a protection racket for middle eastern tyrants and kings, they sell only in dollars, we supply the troops to prop them up against inside/ outside threats.

It is only that demand for the dollar today that keeps the currency afloat.

[Igel]

18. Wolfowitz gave a number of answers.

All of which were discussed in early 2003, to one extent or another. Before the press decided there couldn't be more than one reason.

He states three reasons, but seems to imply a fourth. It's the fourth that's now the 'main' reason.

http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2003/tr20030509-depsecdef0223.html
DoD website, public official speaking as part of his duty ... no copyright.
==========================================
Wolfowitz: No, I think it happens to be correct. The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason, but -- hold on one second --

(Pause)

Kellems: Sam there may be some value in clarity on the point that it may take years to get post-Saddam Iraq right. It can be easily misconstrued, especially when it comes to --

Wolfowitz: -- there have always been three fundamental concerns. One is weapons of mass destruction, the second is support for terrorism, the third is the criminal treatment of the Iraqi people. Actually I guess you could say there's a fourth overriding one which is the connection between the first two. Sorry, hold on again.

...

The third one by itself, as I think I said earlier, is a reason to help the Iraqis but it's not a reason to put American kids' lives at risk, certainly not on the scale we did it. That second issue about links to terrorism is the one about which there's the most disagreement within the bureaucracy, even though I think everyone agrees that we killed 100 or so of an al Qaeda group in northern Iraq in this recent go-around, that we've arrested that al Qaeda guy in Baghdad who was connected to this guy Zarqawi whom Powell spoke about in his UN presentation.

Q: So this notion then that the strategic question was really a part of the equation, that you were looking at Saudi Arabia --

Wolfowitz: I was. It's one of the reasons why I took a very different view of what the argument that removing Saddam Hussein would destabilize the Middle East. I said on the record, I don't understand how people can really believe that removing this huge source of instability is going to be a cause of instability in the Middle East.
=====================

(Of course, he seems to be about as wrong on the last point as it's humanly possible to be.)

[Marrak]

19. To show Saddam they could

piss higher up a tree!

"The Bush administration kept claiming that Saddam killed 300,000 Iraqis over 24 years. After this latest report published in The Lancet, 300,000 is looking quite modest and tame. Congratulations Bush et al." Riverbend

<http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/>
:kick: