July 2004

To the editor:

Now that the Bush administration's justifications for the United States' attack on Iraq have been proven fraudulent to even some GOP sycophants, it is crucial to ask ourselves why U.S. plutocrats are choosing to attack a sovereign nation. The following are the reasons why:

1.) A paranoid Israel desired that the United States vanquish a perceived Arab threat at its doorstep.
2.) Iraq sits atop the world's second largest supply of untapped oil reserves. Western investors, multinationals and the oilmen in the Bush administration salivate over the profits: estimates run well into the trillions of dollars.
3.) As a display of complete and total United States imperial dominance.
4.) The most important reason: the removal of the Bathist regime has opened the entire Iraqi economy to foreign capitalist penetration. Under Hussein much of the country was nationalized and running relatively well (before the U.S. imposed sanctions). Now the Fortune 500 is going to rush in and have a free-for-all: they are being allowed to repatriate 100% of the profits they exploit out of the Iraqi economy.

Bush connected firms have made billions of dollars in Iraqi war profiteering, it is greed beyond anyone's wildest imagination; in the meantime 10,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed since the U.S. invasion began. Sadly, if there were no Iraqi freedom fighters putting up a daily resistance this occupation would have been relegated to the inside pages of our newspapers long ago.

Drew Hunkins

Madison, WI