It's a war for oil, you know

The London Independent is warning its readers of a new law soon to be passed in Iraq that will open up the country's spigots to "big oil". You can probably guess what's coming:

The huge potential prizes for Western firms will give ammunition to critics who say the Iraq war was fought for oil. .

Of course the war was partially fought about oil--Saddam was sitting on a gusher. Everyone knows the emerging economies of India and China and the diminishing Saudi fields are expected to stress the world supply pretty soon. Unfortunately, it seems most of the world's oil is controlled by nutballs.

Admittedly there might be some 'splainin to do regards remarks made before the war about using the revenues to offset the costs of fighting. But the Independent puddles through their entire story without reminding us how Saddam handled his oil through Oil for Food, which basically amounted to a UN-sanctioned child starvation program.

They also forgot to mention back room deals with the French and Russians that would have seen Total or Russia's state-controlled oil company (neither are part of big oil, I guess) monopolizing his crude, contracts that were to go into effect as soon as the aforementioned countries could bamboozle away the UN sanctions, mass graves not withstanding. Don't forget all that oil he torched in Kuwait, just because.

Such glaring omissions, other than proving their bias, tends to leave the impression that having a murderous dictator controlling Iraqi oil and using proceeds to secretly acquire weapons, bribe leaders, invade other countries, and build garish palaces in a world full of crazy Islamic terrorists is much preferred to having publicly traded companies dealing with oil with proceeds eventually going to the people. Evil in our time defined. El Diablo. Got it.