Corn!

=========== See the Cato Institute report on this. No one can acuse them of being "liberals."

see

Unka George (George McDuffee) ============================= ...and at the end of the fight is a tombstone white with the name of the late deceased, and the epitaph drear: ?A Fool lies here, who tried to hustle the East.?

Rudyard Kipling The Naulahka, ch. 5, heading (1892).

Look again. You don't understand your own figures: Iraq oil certainly IS important to the US, despite the fact that our direct imports of Iraqi oil appear to be small. A barrel of Iraqi oil that doesn't make it into the market is a barrel that cuts into our supply indirectly, by increasing demand from some other country.

It doesn't matter if we import it directly. It matters whether that barrel is in the market. If it isn't, it drives up our prices and pits us against other oil consumers -- including Iraq itself.

-- Ed Huntress

See:-

sanc·tion (sngkshn) n.

1. Authoritative permission or approval that makes a course of action valid. See Synonyms at permission.

Also see:-

"In 1998, the U.N. eased the rules, allowing Iraq to export up to $5.26 billion of oil every six months. The program earmarked two-thirds of the oil proceeds to "meet the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people," the Security Council said. In 1999, the U.N. completely lifted its ceiling on oil sales, but maintained its control over Saddam Hussein's use of oil funds.

Before the war, more than 60 percent of Iraq's 24 million people survived on U.N. aid provided through the program, according to the U.N. Oil for Food program.

However, the oil money did not necessarily purchase food and medical supplies exclusively -- a large percentage of profits were reportedly used to buy technical supplies for the oil industry.

Before the war, the U.N. sanctions committee had the final authority to approve or veto all of Iraq's prospective oil deals. Iraq's legitimate oil exports in 2002 totaled $17.8 billion, with export funds filtering into U.N. accounts for later disbursement for U.N.-approved humanitarian programs"

That sounds to me like sanctions still being in place.

Also:-

I also assume that the USA actually WAS planning war on Iraq at least four months before the actual invasion!

Regards Mark Rand RTFM

an even larger amount of those profits were used to build 16 new palaces for Saddam, diverting the money away from humanitarian foods and supplies for his people..and for bribing those same UN officials, along with officials from France, Germany and Russia...the same three who didnt go along with the war.

See any trend there?

Gunner

"Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for Western civilization as it commits suicide"

- James Burnham

I'm a strong supporter of agricultural subsidies because I understand that a free market relies on supply and demand which, like animal populations in the wild, are cyclical. If the product in commerce is basic foodstuffs, relying on supply and demand creates a risk of periods of famine. The whole point of agricultural subsidies is to force stability on the market in order to maintain a surplus of the product simultaneous with a price sufficient to maintain that surplus level of production.

I'm having a little trouble understanding how a participant in that subsidy program, can reconcile that with a "How about if we let the free market decide?" attitude toward production of that same commodity.

They're right if they include sunlight in their energy budget. But then the same would be true for fossil fuels.

ALL fuels require more energy to produce than they yield in return, if you consider the entire energy budget.

ISTR that in all cases the figures included ONLY those who were evacuated to hospital in the US. Casualties evacuated to outpatient care or home convelesance were not included.

Ok that establishes a pre-invasion baseline.

Do you have similar numbers post-invasion?

If Iraqi production dropped post-invasion, did that increase demand (and price) for Saudi oil?

About what, the sanctions, or planning the invasion?