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Iraq war costs U.S. more than $2 trillion: study

Catawba said:
None of those companies are big oil and none western.
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Pardon? France, Italy and Spain are not "Western"? What are they - Micronesian?

Total S.A. had assets of $205 billion last year. Not exactly small fry (Compare the mighty ConocoPhilips with $153 billion; Chevron had $209 B).


The leftist narrative about "blood for oil" is simply dumb and offensive. It doesn't match any reality "before", "during" or "after".
As you could notice, I am not defending the war - quite the opposite. But can we, please, dispose of the populist myths that cannot survive even a most casual encounter with facts?
 
Cyrylek said:
Pardon? France, Italy and Spain are not "Western"? What are they - Micronesian?

Total S.A. had assets of $205 billion last year. Not exactly small fry (Compare the mighty ConocoPhilips with $153 billion; Chevron had $209 B).


The leftist narrative about "blood for oil" is simply dumb and offensive. It doesn't match any reality "before", "during" or "after".
As you could notice, I am not defending the war - quite the opposite. But can we, please, dispose of the populist myths that cannot survive even a most casual encounter with facts?
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Catawba said:
Even following the outbreak of the 1973 Yom Kippur war, Iraq did not nationalise the entire Basra Petroleum Company (BPC). On the 7 October the government announced that it had nationalised the shares of the American companies (Exxon and Mobil) in retaliation for the United States' support of Israel, and later that month it also nationalised the shares of Royal Dutch Shell for similar reasons. However in December 1975 President Bakr announced the complete takeover of foreign interests in the BPC, completing the nationalisation process."

Nationalisation of Iraqi Oil Industry - Oil4All
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Catawba said:
Its not my argument, it was the plan from: "Strategic Energy Policy Challenges For The 21st Century" (before the 9/11 attack)

Official: US oil at the heart of Iraq crisis
Sunday Herald, The, Oct 6, 2002 by Exclusive By Neil Mackay

"President Bush's Cabinet agreed in April 2001 that "Iraq remains a destabilizing influence to the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East" and because this is an unacceptable risk to the US "military intervention" is necessary.

Vice-president Dick Cheney, who chairs the White House Energy Policy Development Group, commissioned a report on "energy security" from the Baker Institute for Public Policy, a think-tank set up by James Baker, the former US secretary of state under George Bush Snr.

The report, Strategic Energy Policy Challenges For The 21st Century, concludes: "The United States remains a prisoner of its energy dilemma. Iraq remains a de-stabilising influence to the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East. Saddam Hussein has also demonstrated a willingness to threaten to use the oil weapon and to use his own export programme to manipulate oil markets. Therefore the US should conduct an immediate policy review toward Iraq including military, energy, economic and political/ diplomatic assessments.

"The United States should then develop an integrated strategy with key allies in Europe and Asia, and with key countries in the Middle East, to restate goals with respect to Iraqi policy and to restore a cohesive coalition of key allies."

Baker who delivered the recommendations to Cheney, the former chief executive of Texas oil firm Halliburton, was advised by Kenneth Lay, the disgraced former chief executive of Enron, the US energy giant which went bankrupt after carrying out massive accountancy fraud.

The other advisers to Baker were: Luis Giusti, a Shell non- executive director; John Manzoni, regional president of BP and David O'Reilly, chief executive of ChevronTexaco. Another name linked to the document is Sheikh Saud Al Nasser Al Sabah, the former Kuwaiti oil minister and a fellow of the Baker Institute."


http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4156/is_20021006/ai_n12580286/
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Catawba said:
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Yeah, back in the 70s, the American and British companies were robbed, and the oil industry was nationalized. It is still nationalized. No compensation was ever paid to Exxon, Mobil or Shell, and all oil business in the country is done according to the decisions of the Ministry of Oil which makes deals with corporations that have the actual technical capacity to pump and transport the crude - exactly how it was done under Saddam, and mostly the same corporations.

None of it makes a French or Italian oil behemoth "non-Western" or "small"
 
calamity said:
Thanks, George. The war to nowhere has cost us $2 Trillion and will probably cost us several more before all is said and done. And people wonder why the economy tanked, the deficit is so high and then they blame Obama for the fact that we have no money now.


That $6 Trillion could have bought us lots of bike paths, solar panels and high speed rail lines. But, no. Bush and his supporters had to start a war with a country that never did us any harm.


Dolts.
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Yeah - I recall everyone pointing out while it was going on that it was costing us a lot of money.

I mean - we were all geniuses back then.
 
Cyrylek said:
Yeah, back in the 70s, the American and British companies were robbed, and the oil industry was nationalized. It is still nationalized. No compensation was ever paid to Exxon, Mobil or Shell, and all oil business in the country is done according to the decisions of the Ministry of Oil which makes deals with corporations that have the actual technical capacity to pump and transport the crude - exactly how it was done under Saddam, and mostly the same corporations.

None of it makes a French or Italian oil behemoth "non-Western" or "small"
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cpwill predicts that new information makes precisely zero dent on the response to this.
 
calamity said:
You mean the fact that the first Iraq war officially ended in 1995? Like I said, hurling a cruise missile or two does not constitute a war.

If the war was "ongoing" then why did Bush need to have Congress vote on it in 2002?
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He wanted congress to vote on it because he was a firm believer in the US Constitution and the Weinberger doctrine. According to the Weinberger doctrine a Commander in Chief should not send troops into a war without any approval from congress, the elected representatives of the people. This is also why Bush kept the war spending separate from the overall federal budget. He had to know that the people's representatives approved the US military actions in Iraq.

The US congress members change every 2 years. And the US Constitution states that congress has the power to declare war, not the president.
 
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calamity said:
You posted no facts and figures, but Rueters did--$2 Trillion wasted.

Or are you going to argue that there really were WMD, and that Bush, Cheney, Rummy, Powell and Rice were telling us the truth?
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John Kerry and Joe Biden seemed to have no problem going along with what they said.
 
Muhammed said:
He wanted congress to vote on it because he was a firm believer in the US Constitution and the Weinberger doctrine. According to the Weinberger doctrine a Commander in Chief should not send troops into a war without any approval from congress, the elected representatives of the people. This is also why Bush kept the war spending separate from the overall federal budget. He had to know that the people's representatives approved the US military actions in Iraq.

The US congress members change every 2 years. And the US Constitution states that congress has the power to declare war, not the president.
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After leaving in 1995, the US had no boots on the ground in Iraq until 2003. Correct? Hostilities due to Saddam jacking around the weapon's inspectors and other violations of the peace agreement are not "war". End of discussion.

You're trying to introduce apples into an orange grove.
 
Aunt Spiker said:
Yeah - I recall everyone pointing out while it was going on that it was costing us a lot of money.

I mean - we were all geniuses back then.
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It wasn't a good idea to oppose the war back then. Doing so would land you on a no fly list, and put you on another list.
Pentagon is keeping secret tabs on peaceful protest activities
Documents released today by the American Civil Liberties Union confirm the Department of Defense (DOD) has been “spying” on peaceful protestors.

The documents reveal the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), a Quaker organization committed to the principles of nonviolence, came under Pentagon surveillance on several occasions last year for organizing or supporting peaceful protest activity.

The Service Committee became lead plaintiff in a federal lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union earlier this year to uncover exactly who the Pentagon is spying on and why. The requests were made under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed in the wake of reports that the Defense Department has been conducting secret surveillance of legal protest activities and individuals whose only reported “wrong-doing” was “attending a peace rally.”
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They made sure that there would be no groundswell of peaceniks opposing their little war. Remember when the media, with their embedded reporters, served as nothing but a cheerleader for the invasion? It wasn't until after 2004 that the eyes began opening many of us saw that the emperor wore no clothes. Sadly, that's when the Right doubled down.
 
calamity said:
After leaving in 1995, the US had no boots on the ground in Iraq until 2003. Correct?
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No. That is not correct. It's a demonstrable lie.

People who suffer from a recognized mental illness known as BDS often lie, and their low IQ dupes and MSM zombified followers often mindlessly repeat those lies ad nauseum.
 
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ARealConservative said:
nearly half of all democrats in the house approved of it. so it is bipartisan because it meets the definition of bipartisan.



I'm not a party shill so those words of yours look retarded to me.
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Ah, 40% is "nearly half of all Democrats in the House" for those living in the RW Alternate Universe, while 3% dissenting Republicans means the GOP tried to stop the war. You guys are a riot. :lol:
 
Muhammed said:
No. That is not correct. It's a demonstrable lie.

People who suffer from a recognized mental illness known as BDS often lie, and their low IQ dupes and MSM zombified followers often mindlessly repeat those lies ad nauseum.
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Actually. It is correct. Sorry, but your odd way of defining things is not the accepted standard.
 
calamity said:
Actually. It is correct.
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Could you explain the logical reasoning that you used to come to that ridiculous conclusion?

You claimed that the US had no boots on the ground in Iraq before 2003. Whoever fed you that BS is obviously a liar.
 
Muhammed said:
Could you explain the logical reasoning that you used to come to that ridiculous conclusion?

You claimed that the US had no boots on the ground in Iraq before 2003. Whoever fed you that BS is obviously a liar.
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Weapons inspectors and others monitoring the peace agreements wore street shoes. Your version of history is weird to say the least.

Here's an article from today on that very subject, discussing the Iraq war on it's tenth anniversary.
Iraq War 10th Anniversary Reminds Us Of The Questions We Didn't Ask
The war remains one of America's most controversial, not to say catastrophic, military endeavors. As we now know, though the U.S. would not invade Iraq until 2003, President Bush (or rather Vice President Dick Cheney, the real "decider") had already determined that the second step in the "war on terror" would be to obliterate Saddam's regime.
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and again
When President George W. Bush announced the invasion into Iraq in March 2003, the goal was to remove a dangerous dictator and his supposed stocks of weapons of mass destruction. It was also to create a functioning democracy and thereby inspire what Bush called a "global democracy revolution."
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And, yet, again
Ten years ago Saturday, the first U.S. troops started to stealthily enter Iraq in advance of the massive "shock and awe" bombing that began on March 20, 2003.
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Any more stupid questions?
 
calamity said:
Ah, 40% is "nearly half of all Democrats in the House" for those living in the RW Alternate Universe, while 3% dissenting Republicans means the GOP tried to stop the war. You guys are a riot. :lol:
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Definition of BIPARTISAN

: of, relating to, or involving members of two parties


crack a book and stop wasting peoples time until after graduation.
 
ARealConservative said:
Definition of BIPARTISAN

: of, relating to, or involving members of two parties


crack a book and stop wasting peoples time until after graduation.
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What we are discussing here is the argument from the Right that the Democrats are equally responsible for the Iraq fiasco as Bush, Cheney and their Republicans lackeys in Congress, save the 3% who saw through the BS. With less than 50% support, the D's were far from agreement on this. And, those that voted for it, were probably more afraid not to than anything "bipartisan".

From the article I cited for Mohammed up there.
Too many members of Congress, including Democrats, stifled their doubts out of political fear -- fear that Bush might be right about the evidence, but more important, fear that the war would go well and they would be on the "wrong" side of it politically, headed into the 2004 presidential election year.
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So, don't twist reality to suit your myopic agenda.
 
Cyrylek said:
Yeah, back in the 70s, the American and British companies were robbed, and the oil industry was nationalized. It is still nationalized. No compensation was ever paid to Exxon, Mobil or Shell, and all oil business in the country is done according to the decisions of the Ministry of Oil which makes deals with corporations that have the actual technical capacity to pump and transport the crude - exactly how it was done under Saddam, and mostly the same corporations.

None of it makes a French or Italian oil behemoth "non-Western" or "small"
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You can spin it however you like. the facts are American and British oil are back in Iraq for the first time since 1973, and that couldn't have happened without our war on Iraq.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!
 
calamity said:
What we are discussing here is the argument from the Right that the Democrats are equally responsible for the Iraq fiasco as Bush
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stop being a shill. What WE (as in you and I) were discussing was how the Iraq war had bipartisan support and any claims of bad intelligence is a cop out for supporting preemptive war and bad policy

When you invent my argument by lumping we in with the "Right", it just shows you can't actually debate individuals and individual ideas.
 
ReformCollege said:
John Kerry and Joe Biden seemed to have no problem going along with what they said.
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The majority of Democrats that voted against AOF in Iraq had a problem going along with what they said.
 
Catawba said:
You can spin it however you like. the facts are American and British oil are back in Iraq for the first time since 1973, and that couldn't have happened without our war on Iraq.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!
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It could have happened easily, in exactly the same way it happened for the French and the Russians: by partnering with Saddam, instead of antagonizing him. Would be much cheaper too.

And while we are "back" in the sense of potential access, the actual access given to our oil companies is nothing to write home about:

U.S. Companies Shut Out as Iraq Auctions Its Oil Fields - TIME

At this point, ExxonMobil is watching helplessly as Baghdad is blocking its exploration in Kurdistan. Not exactly a position of dominant conqueror.
 
Catawba said:
The majority of Democrats that voted against AOF in Iraq had a problem going along with what they said.
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Democratic colleagues of Kerry and Biden voted 29 to 21 in favor of the AOF. What exactly is your definition of "majority" - as unusual, perhaps, as your definition of "Western"?
 
Cyrylek said:
It could have happened easily, in exactly the same way it happened for the French and the Russians: by partnering with Saddam, instead of antagonizing him. Would be much cheaper too.

And while we are "back" in the sense of potential access, the actual access given to our oil companies is nothing to write home about:

U.S. Companies Shut Out as Iraq Auctions Its Oil Fields - TIME

At this point, ExxonMobil is watching helplessly as Baghdad is blocking its exploration in Kurdistan. Not exactly a position of dominant conqueror.
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I never said the neocon plan outlined in the Strategic Energy Challenges for the 21st Century was well thought out, just that military intervention in Iraq was the US plan to deal with unstable Middle East oil prices.
 
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