Reply #3: sorry it's been a shitstorm but that's what happens in Red little towns, here's the paragraph

[NMDemDist2]

that leaped out at me...

"People who say 'oil' are ignorant because, although Iraq does produce some oil, they primarily get it from other countries and refine it there. We can't just go in and take someone's oil for ourselves anyway. There is an organization called O.P.E.C. (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) that regulates the number of barrels of crude oil that a country can produce. So tell your peers to do a little research before they go to a protest holding a 'No More Blood For Oil' sign.

While it's true Iraq doesn't produce much oil now, it's because their infrastructure is all but gone thanks to the war and the lack of international development due to the sanctions after Gulf War I.

Iraq in 4th in the world in proven Oil Reserves (what's still in the ground) and we are allied with two of the other three and saber rattling at the other. Anyone who thinks we're not in Iraq to insure our continued supplies of oil is either woefully uninformed or living in lala land.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0872964.html

Greatest Oil Reserves by Country, 2006
Rank Country Proved reserves
(billion barrels)
1. Saudi Arabia 264.3
2. Canada 178.8
3. Iran 132.5
4. Iraq 115.0