Letters to the Editor
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We're not going to withdraw from Iraq. EVER.
This war was one of blatant conquest. All the publicly stated reasons (WMDs, al Qaeda, etc.) were/are pure propaganda. The leading Democrats only speak about vague "repositioning" of troops, so don't be fooled by their political posturing, either. Remember: They just gave Bush another $100 Billion.
"We are constantly reminded that Iraq has perhaps the world's largest reserves of oil. But in a regional and perhaps even geopolitical sense, it may be more important that Iraq has the most extensive river system in the Middle East. In addition to the Tigris and Euphrates, there are the Greater Zab and Lesser Zab rivers in the north of the country. Iraq was covered with irrigation works by the sixth century A.D., and was a granary for the region. Before the Persian Gulf war, Iraq had built an impressive system of dams and river control projects, the largest being the Darbandikhan dam in the Kurdish area. In the 1990's there was much discussion over the construction of a so-called Peace Pipeline that would bring the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates south to the parched Gulf states and, by extension, Israel. No progress had been made on this, largely because of Iraqi intransigence. With Iraq in American hands, of course, all that will change. America could alter the destiny of the Middle East in a way that probably could not be challenged for decades -- not solely by controlling Iraq's oil, but by controlling its water."
-Stephen C. Pelletiere, CIA senior political analyst on Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war and author of Iraq and the International Oil System: Why America Went to War in the Persian Gulf