MSNBC - Oil after Saddam: All bets are in

MSNBC - Oil after Saddam: All bets are in: "Largely missing from the debate is a simple fact: Iraq sits atop the world’s second-largest reserves of oil — a resource that translates into hundreds of billions of dollars and enormous economic power.

Within America, street protests accusing the administration of yearning to launch an “oil war” occur occasionally, but they pale in comparison to the vehemence of that charge in foreign capitals and newspapers. In European and Asian capitals, and in the restive Muslim world in particular, an “imperialistic quest for oil,” as Saddam himself frames it, is taken by many to be the ultimate goal of American policy toward Iraq. Even friendly Arab nations see it so. Al Ahram, the government-controlled newspaper of record in Egypt, led its editorial page recently with a piece by Palestinian-American Professor Edward Said, who wrote:

“Second to Saudi Arabia, Iraq has the largest oil reserves on earth, and the roughly 1.1 trillion dollars worth of oil — much of it already committed by Saddam to Russia, France and a few other countries ... is a crucial aim of U.S. strategy.”