al Qaeda gets most of its money from the Saudis right now. Would the Shiite dominated Iraqis give more?

Even if the Saudis are paying "protection" money rather than supporting al Qaeda for religious reasons I doubt the Iraqis would provide more funding than al Qaeda already gets from the Saudis.

Excuse me for asking, but didn't the administration go into this war saying that Iraq would be able to fund its own reconstruction, avoiding any long-term commitment of American $$$, through exploitation of its oil reserves?

Gee, we've all seen how effective THAT has been. Unless the assumption is made that al Qaeda has to be better managers (since nobody could be as inept as the current Iraqi government and the U.S. occupation), why would we think that Iraqi oil reserves would be an automatic pot of gold for al Qaeda, or anyone else?

Honestly, the level of mendacity and illogic from the Bush/Cheney crowd takes your breath away. Even after nearly 8 years of experience with them, they never cease to amaze with their latest line of B.S.

It's not so far-fetched if one simply remembers that all Iraqis are now al Qaeda. Ergo...

"if al Qaeda were to take over big parts of Iraq, among other things, they would acquire control of a significant oil resource."

becomes:

"if Iraqis (the ones we haven't bought off, particularly nationalists like Sadr) were to take over big parts of Iraq, among other things, they would acquire control of a significant oil resource."

As for Bush's nonsense that al Qaeda, "could pursue its ambitions to acquire weapons of mass destruction and to attack America and other free nations."

Apparently, they must be better at finding WMD in Iraq than Bush is...

Why should it surprise you? When the VP is in front of a completely sympathetic audience (FoxNews) and NEVER has to asnwer questions from an objective asker, why should he care WHAT he says? Dick Cheney (or George W. Bush for that matter) could say we are protecting Iraq from the Martians and Sean Hannity would nod in agreement and 65% of Republicans would believe it.

When one is completely protected from accountability, then this is what you see.

Because the Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites don't want any of that oil. They're just gonna lease it out to bin Laden.

They get all the oil money they want from Saudi Arabia already. Who do you think funds them now? Rich Sunni oil barons based in that staunch US ally in the war on terror. Our greatest ‘friend’ in the Arab world is also responsible for spreading the most militant form of Islam around the world and the vast majority of the 9/11 hijackers called Saudi Arabia their home.

They're finally having to come clean about the real reason for this war. Even if his outcome scenario is utterly implausible, at least he's correctly identified the real prize at stake. If we (through our marginal puppet proxy government) don't control it, who will? Someone else, that's who! And everyone is out to get us, so we better not let the brown people have it.

Hell, after a trillion or two dollars, hundreds thousands of dead and years of opportunity costs, I'm beginning to think that stealing all that Iraqi oil might be the only "positive" this country could ever hope to pull out of the whole clusterfudge. Gallows humor, of course, but considering we have considerably less than nothing to show for our staggering, massive investment, the scoundrel in me wonders how we could ever begin to recoup our losses. Imagine if we had spent the last 7 years investing trillions in alternative energy technologies, while maintaining fiscal sanity through reasonable taxes - wouldn't that be a nice parallel universe to have forked off to?

... who will buy the oil? (There's probably a good Republican argument saying that the best thing we could do with AQ is to do business with them.)

...That's the whole point of propaganda: one repeats the same lie, half-truth, line, story, talking points, etc. regardless of the truth or facts, until it sinks into the general population. Even if the greatest number of the population resists, as do the American people now, you have to first sell that to oneself, and I doubt Hannity closely questioned Cheney the way you just did.

By the way, what's the chance of keeping you on this beat? No disrespect to Alex, but the quality of WR stories, as testified by a few other WR-heads, has indeed gone up.

which is a half more than usual. The problem isn't Al Qaeda, it's Iran.

But none of these guys can tell the difference anyway. Which is only another argument for Obama.

Obama for Prez: They Don't All Look Alike To Him!

I guess there isn't much traction with Iran-based fearmongering right now, because it seems it would be far more realistic that an Iranian backed faction could take over Iraq after an American pullout. A puppet government in Iraq could then funnel oil money to Iran covertly which would subvert future U.N. attempts to sanction Iran for nuclear weapons production. I'm not saying that is likely, but it seems far more realistic (in a Tom Clancy universe kind of way) than al-frickin'-Qaida takeover.

This claptrap from the same people who strenuously argued that this war wasn't about oil. Amazing.

This is all about one thing and one thing only. This administration has to justify this war somehow, no matter how, and they will be believed by two types of people: those who are too pained by the idea that the Great Decider could make an idiotic decision and will go to any lengths to rationalize that decision, and damn fools. Add them up, and you scrape up the twenty-odd percent that still believe the Administration is doing a good job.

As a corollary, there's a good reason why Dick Cheney is far less popular than George W. Bush, it's the "President doesn't know" syndrome. Time and again, and especially in budding dictatorships, people just can't bring themselves to (gasp!) doubt the Great Leader, so they cling to the notion that the Great Leader simply doesn't know what his nefarious minions are doing. (That the Great Leader is thus shown to be an incompetent moron is conveniently ignored.)

In other words, Cheney's claims are "debunked" only to those who were doubting this Administration's intentions in the first place. Those who blindfold themselves with the American flag will believe anything Cheney says. They have to. They'd feel like idiots otherwise.