Free Republic

“There is a simple way to take the true measure of a country----think about how many people want to get in…..and how many people want to get out.” Prime Minister Tony Blair The “No blood for oil” cabal continues to sound off. For the benefit of those who don’t yet view the USA as a greasy, petrol-craving villain, and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq as the newly compliant, “Give peace a chance” regime, a few questions please: If you folks are right, and this war with Iraq is truly all about oil, why didn’t the first Bush imperialist order the seizure of...

'No Blood for Oil'. This is the slogan under which many protesters all over the world have marched against a possible or probable war against Iraq. It begs the question whether oil really does play such an important role as they are suggesting. It is true that oil analysts keep a close watch on the world energy markets and Iraq's place in it, if only because Iraq, with its proven oil reserves of 112 billion barrels (11% of proven world oil reserves), ranks second after Saudi Arabia. Further exploration could increase this figure to 300 billion. But its current production...

Inconvenient Facts Your January 24 edition hit a milestone in missing some inconvenient facts. “No Blood for Oil” should go on to say that no U.S. oil company can do business with Iraq by law. However, two opponents to any war, Russia and France, have multi-billion dollar oil contracts with Iraq. No wonder they support Mr. Edel’s opposition to war. Two other opponents also have enormous economic interests in Iraq: China, who supplied Iraq with a military upgrade linking anti-aircraft batteries with a cutting edge fiber optic system, in addition to additional military hardware in the multi-million dollar range, and...