If the Second Iraq War Was About Oil, Man Did We Ever Lose It

So says this article by Robert Bryce in the Energy Tribune.

Here's a snip but you may want to read yourself:

If the Second Iraq War was, in fact, about oil, then one thing is clear: we’ve lost. In 1991, America won its first oil war in the Persian Gulf. It kicked the Iraqi military out of Kuwait and reinstalled the emir of Kuwait as the ruler of the New Jersey-sized emirate. But on my visit to Kuwait in late June, during which I interviewed numerous people in the U.S. military, the U.S. State Department, and the private sector, it became obvious that a key reason why America has lost the Second Iraq War is this: it never got control of the oil.

For all of the talk about American soldiers not dying for oil, the hard truth of the Second Iraq War is that the U.S. has never had enough troops in Iraq to secure the country. And securing the country means protecting and controlling Iraq’s critical resources: the oil fields, pipelines, and refineries that provide nearly all of the country’s revenues. That didn’t happen. And it still hasn’t happened.

Insurgents began sabotaging key oil installations in early June of 2003. And they haven’t stopped. As of early July of this year, there have been more than 300 documented attacks on Iraqi oil personnel and infrastructure. (The actual number is almost certainly higher.) In addition, insurgents have created chaos within the oil ministry itself through kidnappings and violence. On July 17, the head of Iraq’s North Oil Company, Adel Qazaz, was kidnapped at his north Baghdad home by unidentified gunmen.