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This means "to the victor go the spoils". We could OWN Iraq and its oil wells instead of having to put up with harrassing actions by left over Ba'ath militants. Privateers could have captured, and made a profit from, those caches of thousands of firearms found buried around Iraq. Money could have been MADE by all, instead of spending billions a month on continued ops in Iraq.

If that's the way it works, just screw Iraq. Let's take Saudi --- more oil, smaller army and we could give Disney the rights to Mecca. Those folks really no how to run a tourist destination.

What makes you think the Saddam loyalists and ather assorted fanatics there wouldn't shoot at some Texaco privateers just like they are shooting at GIs? And where exactly in international law does it say that "to the victors go the spoils." I have never seen that. What it does say is that if you win, you are now responsible for running that country and for the welfare of the people of that country and if you strip it clean you are in violation of international law. Any bootey we find there, including arms, does not belong to us -- it belongs to the people of Iraq.

Prove Saudi Arabia is a direct threat to the US, get Congress to pass a Declaration... and get to it. Clean out the entire middle east for the good of the whole world. Just whacking on other Nations because you want their resources is not a good enough reason however.

Texaco privateers? Would they be under the same strictures that our military personnel are under as far as shoot/don't shoot situations are concerned?

As for the Law of Nations. Are you refering to current UN "law", the old european standard used from around 1300AD to around 1900AD, or one you dug up at Findlaw.org?