The 2nd Gulf War, Why?

I do not believe oil is vital to security.  I said I did not understand how that was so.  Could you explain?  It is important to our economy, but the world, and America, can survive without it, making it not vital.  Food and water are vital, not neccessarily oil.

Now, Iraq;  I did not say they had connections with Al-Quida.  I said they were terrorists.  That is that.

I do not mind if you believe, for whatever reason, that oil was part of the reason.  But it was not the main factor.  Even if the main factor was Bush could not find Bin Laden, that I coudl believe.  I can not believe it was mainly for oil though.

I'm still online for about half an hour so the general should tell me what if there is no oil what his armies would do?.

And what about "Oil" as the thing that explains it all. Isn't that enough?

The modern infrastructure that supports over 6 billion people in the world is dependent on oil. As Decebal has said, without oil we wouldn't have enough food, or be able to transport it to where it is needed. Oil fired power plants also provide power in many countries and oil is converted into many products that we consider essential today.

As for finding another fuel there is nothing that is as readily available as oil or as abundant. It's likely that things like solar power and geo-thermal will replace fossil fuels but that takes time. As it stands now we have no choice but to be held over the oil barrel.

All of humanity would not necessarily survive, you see. Oil is needed to bring food to the market, to produce food in the first place due to the predominance of mechanized agriculture, and to heat homes in colder climates. The way our society is structured, if oil was abruptly unavailable, it would produce a lot of hardship, including death.

Anyway, we're simply arguing over semantics and hypothetical situations here. What matters is that oil is important enough to go to war over it. And, as oil men, people who have spent most of their adult lives dealing with oil, Bush and Cheney would be the first to recognize that.

If you had been following the news closely (or had read carefully all the posts on this topic), you would have had your answer. The Iraqi insurgents and some terrorists have attacked oil pipelines, oil wells and supply lines. As a result, the Iraqi oil production is now lower than it was before the war.

The thing is that Bush and Cheney and their entourage and think-tanks did not anticipate the insurgency.  If you will remember, they were expecting Iraqis to greet them with flowers as liberators. Before the war, Bush was predicting that the Iraqi reconstruction would pay for itself, because of Iraq's oil production.

In addition to this, the global oil demand has increased in the last couple of years, due the continuing economic development in countries such as India and China. So the oil price has increased as a result of greater demand, and lower supply.

You misunderstand, I never talked about the Americans simply going in and taking the oil. I'm talking about them doing the same thing as in Saudi Arabia: American companies (Exxon, Texaco, Unocal, etc.), employing local Iraqi (or Saudi) employees, except for the managers and consultants, who are American. They also use drilling and exploitation equipment made by Americans (Halliburton, Bechtel). I believe that right now in Saudi Arabia, the Saudis take 30% of all the revenues generated from the exploitation and sale of oil from Saudi oilfields. The rest goes to the companies which do the actual extraction, and those which do the refining. This is a setup which is common in most oil-producing countries.

Now, before the war, it was Iraqi state companies, along with French (ELF) and Russian oil companies which were doing the oil exploitation in Iraq. This is one of the main reasons why the French were opposed to the Americans invading Iraq.

So you see, it's not a matter of the Americans going in and simply taking the Iraqi oil. The Iraqis do make money out of this, just as they did before. What matters is that it's American companies who now get the lucrative opportunity to extract and refine the Iraqi oil, and in the end it is American companies who sell that oil. They are the ones making the profits and they are the ones making the decisions as to whom that oil is sold. So in the end that money gets funneled in the American economy (and of course in the pockets of all those oil executives), and the Americans can rely on American companies selling enough of a share of the Iraqi oil, to ensure American needs are met. Those oil executives are often good friends or even business partners of politicians, who depend on them for campaign contributions. Many politicians, such as Dick Cheney, have millions invested in firms such as Halliburton, who get big fat contracts for providing equipment and services to oil firms in Iraq (along with contracts for supplying the army).

I believe that they are talking about the revenues that Iraq gets (that 30% or whatever it is), after the oil companies take their share. That is still a considerable sum, in the billions of $/ year. In 1999, Iraq produced 2.5 million barrels/day (which was reduced to 1.5 million in 2004). In 1990, it was producing 3.5 million barrels a day. At 1999 levels, which are normal, and with oil at $50/barrel, that means $125 million/day worth of oil would be exploited in Iraq, out of which Iraq might get $45 million per day. That means $28.5 billion per year. Of course the oil companies would be making more than twice that in revenues, since they have a larger share, and since they get to add on some profit margins on the oil refining and transportation. 

Now granted, Iraq does have its own oil companies, and there are other non-American oil companies in Iraq. But even then, American companies can make billions of dollars every year in Iraq.

You can get some numbers on oil production here: http://www.gravmag.com/oil.html#producers

Check out what they say in this site. Note that this is not just any organization: GPF (Global Policy Fund) is a non-profit, tax-exempt organization, with consultative status at the UN.

Iraq has the world�s second largest proven oil reserves. According to oil industry experts, new exploration will probably raise Iraq�s reserves to 200+ billion barrels of high-grade crude, extraordinarily cheap to produce. The four giant firms located in the US and the UK have been keen to get back into Iraq, from which they were excluded with the nationalization of 1972. During the final years of the Saddam era, they envied companies from France, Russia, China, and elsewhere, who had obtained major contracts. But UN sanctions (kept in place by the US and the UK) kept those contracts inoperable. Since the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, everything has changed. In the new setting, with Washington running the show, "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. The new Iraqi constitution of 2005, greatly influenced by US advisors, contains language that guarantees a major role for foreign companies. Negotiators hope soon to complete deals on Production Sharing Agreements that will give the companies control over dozens of fields, including the fabled super-giant Majnoon, but no contracts can be signed until after elections, when a new government takes office. While regional governments angle for influence over the foreign oil contracts, most Iraqis favor continued control by a national company and the powerful oil workers union opposes de-nationalization. Iraq's political future is very much in flux, but oil remains the central feature of the political landscape.

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/oil/irqindx.htm