OIL

Your president, vice president, secretary of state, secretary of defense, and Senator Orrin Hatch told you that we had to attack Iraq to capture Saddam's evil weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

The United Nations inspectors led by Hans Blix and Scott Ritter scoffed at the claim. After the story was found to be false, we heard other explanations. One was the "confession" by Senator Hatch when he visited the offices of The Spectrum last month. He told the newspaper's editors that we acted to save Israel from Iraq. Please understand that Israel has amply supplies of WMD, and can defend itself.

Let's not forget oil. The NO BLOOD FOR OIL banners, which were seen everywhere before Shock & Awe, represented real concerns. Consider Iraq's new oil law - a provision which the U.S. State Department helped draft in 2006 - and its oily implications. The law allows for 63 of Iraq's 80 major oil fields to be under the control of American, British and Dutch companies. The law provides for a 30 year period in which no taxes or fees of any kind shall be levied on the oil taken by foreign companies.

The subject is rarely mentioned. It's a journalistic untouchable and apparently unprintable in mainstream media circles.

Whenever you have a quiet moment and ponder the reason why we went blasting into a weak nation, you have to dismiss the WMD story. Also, you can doubt Hatch's loose talk about Israel - who sent neither soldiers nor aid of any kind to the coalition cause.

But oil. Hmmm. Before the war, Iraq owned 100% of the oil under its soil. Now, by their own law, they have only about 22%.

Whose oil is it? Well, it's not theirs and it's not ours. It's Exxon's, Chevron's and British Petrol's.

It's all so simple.