If was just about oil they would've ended sanctions years ago.
... from an interesting article: Crude by Peter Beinart
"why wouldn't the United States simply lift sanctions? Attacking Saddam, after all, entails huge financial costs, risks American lives, and could prompt civil war in precisely those parts of Iraq where oil companies want to drill. Lifting sanctions would far more easily produce the same result--since it is sanctions that have partially prevented Iraq from importing the equipment that it needs to boost oil production. Saddam has made it clear that he'd love to pump more oil--if the world would let him use the revenue to buy palaces and Scuds. In 1995, for instance, Baghdad announced that if sanctions were lifted it would enter into agreements with foreign oil companies aimed at boosting production to between six and seven million barrels per day--roughly the same amount analysts envision under a post-Saddam regime."
"In fact, it isn't war that the American oil industry has been lobbying for all these years; it's the end of sanctions. As late as October 2001, after Bush administration hawks had already begun talking about war with Iraq, the American Petroleum Institute was still focused on trying to lift sanctions. In an interview with Energy Day, an institute spokesman criticized "the roadblocks of U.S. law that unilaterally close important markets to U.S. companies while leaving the door wide open for competitors." Antiwar lefties are quick to cite Vice President Dick Cheney's tenure at Halliburton as evidence that the oil industry is behind America's rush to war. But when Cheney ran Halliburton, he wasn't calling for an invasion of Iraq; and, while for personal reasons more supportive of Iraqi sanctions than most, he nonetheless railed against the sanctions that America imposed everywhere in the Middle East.
Indeed, for their first nine months in office, Cheney and the Bush team didn't propose invading Iraq; they proposed scaling back the U.N. sanctions regime. The Bush administration changed its mind not because of oil but because of terrorism. September 11 made the terrorist threat a reality, and the more American policymakers began worrying about that threat, the more they began worrying about the proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons--which seems to be how they arrived at war with Iraq. "
PS, i think bush is doing a good job. i agree, if after 12 years of la dee da from saddam, what else do you propose? i think by acting as irrational and bulldoggish as bush is, its good for someone like saddam. (remember this is after 12 years) what has doing nothing about terrorism over the last 8 years done for us? we've taken plenty of knee blows, and just let them slide... only to bring on 9/11. if you've heard bin laden's tapes, you know how irrational that guy is. he said at one point that its not even about politics, we just deserve to die b/c we're "infidels". we've been on this guy's list for a long time. he'd obviously be fine with purchasing weapons of md from saddam. i have no doubt. now what? i really don't think this is all about oil..
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