Iraq pays for is demise?
 

Link to a reprint of an article by the Long Island, NY Newsday.

http://www.casi.org.uk/discuss/2003/msg00093.html

I believe I've heard that some in the administration want Iraq to pay for the war as well as the occupation. Most comments I've read and heard say they don't know the cost of a war with Iraq but best guess is apparently $100 billion couple that with a pro-longed occupation and you could see a cost of $300 billion total. Normally Iraq produces about 2.8 million barrels a day. Give oil a generous price going forward on average of $35.00 a barrel. At those numbers it would take 3061 days of normal oil production to pay back the USA according to my calculations. According to the article Iraq could expand it's production a great deal. Who would finance such an expansion? Also certainly not all of the oil produced could be used to pay the USA as oil would be a key part of the Iraqi economy. Also a massive increase in Iraqi oil production would certainly bring down oil prices a lot and probably ruin OPEC (not necessarily bad) but I doubt if the Arab members of OPEC would stand for such a thing. Does anybody have other links that validate the supposed Bush administration plan?

Re: Iraq pays for is demise?
 

Just goes to show that 300 billion dollars doesn't go as far as it used to.

Re: Iraq pays for is demise?
 

This comes as a surprise to someone? Why would we pay for it, when we can just have them pay for it. How will they pay for it? Looks to me like they've got a wealth of natural resources. Well...ok...one natural resource. That's cool though. We'll take that and call it even.

Funny how that works out, when some like to argue either that (a) it's not about oil, or (b) that it's some humanitarian gesture. How humanitarian is it when you're making a profit in the process? (Or conversely, why aren't we engaged in the same level of humanitarian military invasions in countries without oil?)