Oil, and the cost of the war?

Was the war really for Oil?

This is a question a lot people have asked. I don't think it was. Some people say that we went to war because we wanted to secure more oil or because George Bush was an oil man and control over Iraq would help him. Saying that the United States would use its military might to gain an economic advantage is a realist argument and I believe that there are situations where this is true, but Iraq is not one of them.

First of all, the war in Iraq has been so expensive that any profits we make off of Iraqi oil are negated by the cost of funding the invasion and occupation. There are recent estimates that predict that the war in Iraq will cost the United States between two and four trillion dollars. According to this recent estimate, unless the Unites States makes between two and four billion dollars off of Iraqi oil, the war would not pay for itself.

Unfortunately, the United States is losing oil money, not making it, as a result of the war.

Market prices stay lower when the market is stable as opposed to times of turmoil. If we wanted to keep the price of oil low, invading a major oil producing country is not the proper strategy. Iraq's oil production went down after the invasion, not up. Linda J Bilmes and Joseph E. Stiglitz (PhD and Nobel Prize winning economist) predict that the U.S. will lose up to 800 billion dollars as a result of the wars effect upon the oil industry.

Finally, J. Robinson West, JD, Chairman and Founder of PFC Energy, stated in a Feb. 14, 2003 that George Bush passed an executive order to restrict U.S. companies from dealing with Iraqi oil companies during the occupation. If Bush's goal was to secure oil for the United States, then this order would make no sense.