Maybe we should seperate the facts from suspicions. From a judicial point of view Libby is still in the clear. But dimissing that this has nothin to do with the war in Iraq is too easy.
This man was in over his head and you know that. And now saying that he might have done these things because of..... of what actually? Just retrace the steps and see who will benefit the most. And it sure as hell isn't that Wilson man. Why would Libby do this? Did he have the spring in his head? No, it was because of something larger. And since Bush got his 2nd term because of this war, who profitted from that? Just retrace and you'll learn enough. Whether they can prove this, that is a second. But I guess you have shredders in the US too.

I thought in the world of the grown-ups you needed evidence to actually draw conclusions about someone's guiltiness.

I couldn't agree with you more Italian Guy. So tell me; what are the Americans doing in Iraq. In 2003 Bush told the world that Saddam was buying uranium for weapoms of mass destruction. He invaded before any evidence was found. Weapon inspectors have scoured Iraq for proof and didn't find any. This was not enough to convince the Bush administration.
Proof... who needs proof in the US? So once again you and I agree but fill it out differently. If proof is what you are looking for don't invade first. If you do invade without proof, don't start asking for it when it bites you in the ass.

Originally Posted by Ted

I couldn't agree with you more Italian Guy. So tell me; what are the Americans doing in Iraq. In 2003 Bush told the world that Saddam was buying uranium for weapoms of mass destruction. He invaded before any evidence was found. Weapon inspectors have scoured Iraq for proof and didn't find any. This was not enough to convince the Bush administration.
Proof... who needs proof in the US? So once again you and I agree but fill it out differently. If proof is what you are looking for don't invade first. If you do invade without proof, don't start asking for it when it bites you in the ass.

Reasons why Bush went into Iraq:

1)Weapons of mass destruction: French, UN and Russian intelligence all believed Saddam had them, that is why resolutions were passed at the UN sending inspectors to see how advanced his disarmamenting process had gone. Saddam himself said he had those weapons and the burden of the proof was on him, not on Bush. Remember, the French, Russian and UN intelligence believed he had them.

2)Democratization of the country: in progress now. This has been a rationale for the war for years, core point for the neocon strategy which I soundly happen to agree on.

3)Terrorism/Baghdad connections: proved and crushed thanks to the war.

You say "In 2003 Bush told the world that Saddam was buying uranium for weapoms of mass destruction". No you're wrong: In fact Bush didn't say that. He said Baghdad had been trying to acquire uranium from various African countries, on his Speech on the State of the Union Jan 28, 2003. "Sought to acquire", not "bought", or "was buying". Those documents were fabricated in France and French services fervently believed that Saddam had been trying to buy uranium from Niger. But Bush never used information contained in there. I prompt you to read the independent and bipartisan reports of Lord Butler in UK and the Intelligence Commission Senate Report in Washington DC.

IG, You could not have explained it any more clearly. Let me give you some advice you gave me that I listened to and thank you for. Don't let yourself be drawn out by someone repeating the same mantra over and over again that everything is President Bush's fault and the Monster of the Middle East was just an innocent bystander. Give `em hell.

Nice one Italian Guy......

I'm am writing this second bit as my white flag on this issue, but don't get me wrong on my stance towards the Middle East. I have no beard and think their governments are "dubious" to say the least.
The porblem for me is the haphazard way in saying he is wrong and he is right. This shuts out all the middle routes in this long way to peace. The easy option of saying "he's wrong and should be gotten rid off" does more wrong than right. I miss the carefull balanced opinions in some of you, which is needed when going to war. Firing the rifle is the easy part. Making the others not pick up theirs is the hard part.

1) safe and secure oil supply

2Weapons of mass destruction: French, UN and Russian intelligence all believed Saddam had them, that is why resolutions were passed at the UN sending inspectors to see how advanced his disarmamenting process had gone. Saddam himself said he had those weapons and the burden of the proof was on him, not on Bush. Remember, the French, Russian and UN intelligence believed he had them.

3)Democratization of the country: in progress now. This has been a rationale for the war for years, core point for the neocon strategy which I soundly happen to agree on.

4)Terrorism/Baghdad connections: proved and crushed thanks to the war.

Originally Posted by Rabs

Safe and secure oil supply

Not that one for sure, man.

Missileer, you're totally right.

Rabs

I going to put this day down on my calender "the day mmarsh and Rabs agreed on something". . Yes I agree that oil was most certainly an issue if not the principal issue.

I am going to offer one more. Sphere of Influance. Right now the US has bases in both Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait as we know are Whabbist Muslim (a school of Islam the most fundimentalist, most violent, and intolerant of all). This of course is a breeding ground for people like bin Laden and other like minded fundimentalists. This makes operating in Saudi Arabia both very dangerous and embarrassing to the USA as the house of Saud is possibly the most ruthless dictatorship in the Middle East.

Iraq on the other hand is much more secular (relatively speaking). People are much better educated in Iraq than Saudi Arabia which makes religous extremism less of a threat. (Most extremists in Iraq are foreigners or take orders from countries such as Iran). Also Iraq is much better situated geographically to keep better tabs on troublemakers in the region. My suspicion is that the Neocons though that Iraq would be a better place to set up military bases than Saudi Arabia. Of course they might be rethinking that position by now.

A War for Oil? Not This Time

By Max Boot

The New York Times, February 13, 2003


When Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld visited "Old Europe" last week, the placards and protesters lining his path were a visceral reminder of what the Bush administration already knew: Solid majorities in key European countries think that greed is our motive for wanting to depose Saddam Hussein. In fact, in a recent Pew Research Center poll 75 percent of respondents in France, 54 percent in Germany and 76 percent in Russia said that America wants to invade Iraq because "the U.S. wants to control Iraqi oil."

Although Americans are divided on the wisdom of an invasion, only 22 percent of us subscribe to the cynical view that it's just about oil. Even Jimmy Carter, hardly a hawk, rebutted the accusation at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony: "I know my country, I know my people, and I can assure you that's not the policy of my government." What accounts for this trans-Atlantic disconnect? To answer that question, start by considering the accusation on the merits: Is America going into Iraq in search of "black gold"?

The charge has a surface plausibility because Iraq does have the second-largest known reserves in the world. But we certainly don't need to send 250,000 soldiers to get at it. Saddam Hussein would gladly sell us all the oil we wanted. The only thing preventing unlimited sales are the United States-enforced sanctions, which Baghdad (and the big oil companies) would love to see lifted. Washington has refused to go along because Saddam Hussein flouts United Nations resolutions. This suggests that our primary focus is the threat he poses, not the oil he possesses.

It's true that overthrowing Saddam Hussein would lead to the lifting of sanctions and a possible increase in oil exports. But it would take a lot of time and money to rebuild Iraq's dilapidated oil industry, even if the regime didn't torch everything on the way out. A study from the Council on Foreign Relations and the James A. Baker III Institute at Rice University estimated that it would take three years and $5 billion to restore Iraqi production just to its pre-1990 level of 3.5 million barrels a day. That would increase total world production by only 1.3 percent, and might not reduce prices at all if other countries cut output or banded together to keep prices stable.

Some optimists think a postwar Iraq would stiff OPEC and slash prices radically. This seems unlikely, if the experience of Kuwait is anything to go by. While oil prices spiked before the Persian Gulf war and plummeted afterward, the long-term impact has been close to nil. Kuwait hasn't exactly been offering to fill up American sport utility vehicles free out of gratitude for being liberated. It hasn't even carried out its pledge to allow direct foreign investment in state-owned oil fields.

As with Kuwait, a liberated Iraq would likely remain an enthusiastic member of OPEC because it would need to establish its nationalist credentials and maintain amicable relations with its oil-cartel neighbors.

For that matter, would our government really want a steep drop in prices? The domestic oil patch -- including President Bush's home state, Texas -- was devastated in the 1980's when prices fell as low as $10 a barrel. Washington is generally happy with a range of $18 to $25 a barrel, about where oil was before the strikes in Venezuela and jitters about Iraq helped push prices over $34 a barrel. If we were really concerned about cheap oil above all, we'd be sending troops to Caracas, not Baghdad.

The other possible economic advantage in Iraq would be for American companies to win contracts to put out fires, repair refineries and help operate the oil industry, as they did in Kuwait. What's the total value of such work? It's impossible to say, but last year Iraq signed a deal with Russian companies (since canceled by Saddam Hussein) to rebuild oil and other industries, valued at $40 billion over five years.

Yet the White House estimates the military operation alone would cost $50 billion to $60 billion. (Others suggest the figure would be far higher.) And rebuilding of the country's cities, roads and public facilities would cost $20 billion to $100 billion more, with much of that money in the initial years coming from the "international community" (read: Uncle Sam).

Thus, if a capitalist cabal were running the war, it would have to conclude it wasn't a paying proposition.

This doesn't mean that oil is entirely irrelevant to the subject of Iraq. It does matter in one very important way: Oil revenues make Saddam Hussein much more dangerous than your run-of-the-mill dictator, because they give him the ability to build not only palaces but also top-of-the-line weapons of mass destruction.

Americans recognize this. Europeans don't. Why not? Here's my theory: Europeans are projecting their own behavior onto us. They know that their own foreign policies have in the past often been driven by avarice -- all those imperialists after East Indian spices or African diamonds. (This tradition is going strong today in Russia and France, whose Iraq policies seem driven at least in part by oil companies that were granted lucrative concessions by Saddam Hussein.)

Nobody would claim that America's global intentions have always been entirely pure. Still, our foreign policy -- from the Barbary war to Kosovo -- has usually had a strain of idealism at which the cynical Europeans have scoffed. In the case of Iraq, they just can't seem to accept that we might be acting for, say, the general safety and security of the world. After more than 200 years, Europe still hasn't figured out what makes America tick.


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Max Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, is author of "The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power."