The big conflict.

Is it for people, or is it for Oil.

The Gov't has said that it is for people, so immediately the challenge is placed on proving that it isn't. No one needs to prove that it is for people because the good gov't has said so.

Challenge.

Prove that it isn't for Oil.

I will not discredit sensible answers like so many people have done to credible arguements supporting the idea that the war is for Oil. We don't need to name, names on that.

__________________
Humans, a renewable resource?
Bumble Bees Die to sting you

If the war was for oil, why have the prices sky rocketed

If it wasnt for oil then what was it for? Everyone now hates us, lost 2,000 soldiers, our own citizens hate us/them (government), and more citizens have been dieing now than with Sadaam in control. I think originally our gov't underestimated the enemy and in the beginning one of the main reasons was for oil but now with so much other stuff going wrong its probably not as an important.

The proof that it isn't for oil is that we haven't taken a drop of oil. In fact, we don't even have enough refineries to process the oil we're already getting! The reason why gas prices in the US have increased over the past months is because demand keeps increasing, but we can't refine oil fast enough. The problem isn't the amount of oil coming into the US.

But like you said, we don't need proof. The accusers must provide proof of guilt.

As old oil fields dry up .New ones are needed. Chinas economy is increasing by 8% a year .In 2004, according to the Ministry of Commerce, China's oil imports were 110m tons, up 21% on the previous year.
Iraq has been occupied simply to secure access to Massive oil reserves .which have as yet remained untouched .

In years gone by, the Imperial powers of Europe simply occupied a country and ruled it .Enabling an elite aristocratic clique to exploit the countries mineral wealth .These days we use more sophisticated methods .Such as:- Invade country ,Install friendly (democratic)government ,then do deal with friendly government . This of course can back fire ,if the invading power doesn't plan for every eventuality .
As we can see in Iraq .By dismantling the countries security infrastructure . We inadvertantly created a void . Thus creating a perfect environment for an Insurgency to take place .
In other words we have *****ed up big style !
We are now in a situation where we either just pull out or we get serious and pile a lot more troops in .Enabling us to secure the damn place !

You just helped to prove that it is for the people and not the oil. If we were there to instill a puppet government, we would have kept security forces in place. However, those security forces were the Sunni minority and very oppressive to the Shia. They were removed so that an Iraqi police and military force could be comprised of the various groups.

I never said puppet .I said friendly . As for proving your point ,You're dreaming !
The point is .No oil will be exploited until we have created stability .Which doesn't seem any time near .If America was serious about spreading democracy in Iraq ,Why was there initially NO PLAN?

Thats a ridiculous answer .A BP refinery(the biggest in the US ) in Texas is out of action due to fire and a Hurricane has reduced refining even further . Consequently the US is leaning on the rest of the world to refine the short fall . US consumption has not dropped one bit as a result .Refining has nothing to do with securing reserves of oil . They are quite different !

I agree .The problem is China!

That wasn't the question!

I know that refining oil and reserves of oil are different. My point is that what's the point of securing more oil sources if we can't even keep up with the refining of the oil we're getting already.

I know. I already addressed the challenge given. That statement was just an agreement with the first part of his post. My initial contention was that we haven't taken any oil, thus the war's not for oil. If we wanted to, we could take oil out of there. The oil is secure enough.

The Oil in Iraq is not secure. When the pipes get up and running, a bomb mysteriously brings it to a halt again.

Plus:

THE DAILY STAR

...But more than the threat of Al-Qaeda terror, KAAOT's main problem is its dilapidated state, like that of many of Iraq's oil facilities due to a decade of UN sanctions against the ousted regime of Saddam Hussein.

KAAOT suffers from a structural problem: super tankers can not reach the terminal because of the shallow waters around the area.

And the terminal has four loading docks, but two of them are so rundown they became obsolete while the two others can only be used one at a time due to pumping problems.

The poor state of the terminal meant that in the last four months, only two tankers managed to load oil from the installation, according to Lieutenant Michael Morse, who commands the U.S. Navy forces on the site.
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When it does get up and running, if the Iraqi's are U.S. friendly it'll flow to the port of New Orleans...assuming that gets fixed too.

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Humans, a renewable resource?
Bumble Bees Die to sting you

Here are a few other countries who's people could really use a hand.

Angola, Bangladesh, Benin, Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Kiribati, Laos, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Maldives, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nepal, Niger, Rwanda, Samoa, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somalia, Sudan, East Timor, Togo, Tuvalu, Uganda, Tanzania, Vanuatu, Yemen, Zambia.

I wonder how many of them are on the radar for "assistance".

__________________
Humans, a renewable resource?
Bumble Bees Die to sting you