In reply to:
What was the ROI for ousting Saddam specifically? What made it better than liberating any other country with an evil dictator?
In a word, OIL
No other "evil dictator" regime I can think of currently has the reserves of oil that the US requires. Despite previous statements in this regards in this BBS and elsewhere I have read - the US is NOT self-sufficient in oil and has not been for some time nor will be ever again (at least while SUVs in particular and internal combustion engines in general, roam the planet)
Therefore the US has to obtain long term external sources of oil to keep its citizens in the style to which they have become accustomed...
...North Korea has nothing the US wants [except maybe a common border with China], Iran is pretty much in the same boat as North Korea..
So the conclusion you reach after considering everything, is that yes, oil is a large part, if not the root, of the problem here.
Saddam had so much of it, he could therefore use it to fund his regime indefinately through smuggling operations - something he has done for 10+years.
Having a "pro-US" regime in Iraq for the forseeable future, will give the US preferential access to Iraq current oil reserves, and more importantly, will allow US energy companies to explore for and then develop/exploit Iraqs untapped oil reserves.
Previous Topic
Index
