Quote Originally Posted by [b
Quote[/b] (Lord Ovaat @ April 15 2004,09:59)]
Quote Originally Posted by [b
Quote[/b] ] JAG, if the long range goals of the US really are to establish a puppet regime in Iraq, don't you think it would have been much easier to accomplish during the Gulf War when the most powerful army ever assembled was in place to do the job?
Yes. Thats exackly why the neocons insisted that the job had not been finished. It was merely politically impossible at the time because the casus belli was the occupation of Kuwait; hence all the lies about 'non-compliance' of recent vintage.

Quote Originally Posted by [b
Quote[/b] ] Lots of folks seem to believe the US is interested only in oil. Oil interests all developed nations. Does the US buy a lot of oil? Certainly. But I think the world would be amazed at the vast quantities of coal, gas, and oil still in the ground in the States.
Venezuaela is the US main south american supplier, and a member of OPEC. I do not hink the Us needs to control a supply of oile; but it does need to be able to undercut OPEC. If it controls a major supplier, as it now does, it can always destroy any price controls OPEC agrees.

There are resources in the US, but these are expensive and dispersed by comparison to the Middle eastern ones. Thats why mkost of these were ignored in earlier decades, they were simply uneconomic.