"Last week, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said the United States could fight two wars at once if it had to, against Iraq and North Korea. Mr. Rumsfeld emphasized that the United States preferred peaceful solutions to international differences..." - David Stout, The New York Times, 12/30/2002

Is it just me, or does Rummy's statement ring hollow? After all, the US is positioning enough in the way of troops, supplies, armor, and aircraft to turn Iraq into a parking lot, in and around the Persian Gulf.

North Korea has admitted that it has a nuclear, not nukyuler as some have taken to saying, weapons program, the US blows it off as an international incident, nothing to worry about. Yet rumors of Iraq having such a program sends the Bush administration into an apoplectic fit, and results in the situation regarding Iraq we now find ourselves.

The difference is that North Korea has no oil reserves. Iraq, on the other hand, is sitting on nearly 25% of the worlds proven oil reserves. Imagine that, a failed Texas oil-man going to war over oil.

Matters became clearer when Colin Powell, in an interview on "Meet the Press" said, "The oil fields are the property of the Iraqi peopl. And if the coalition of forces goes into those fields and make sure they are used to benefit all the people of Iraq and are not destroyed or damaged by the failing regime on its way out the door." He went on to further say that the the income produced by the oilfields will be used "In accordance with international law and to the benefit of the people of Iraq." And, let's not forget, for the benfit of the oil companies which so generously supported Bush's presidential campaign.

British Labour MP, George Galloway said of Colin Powell's interview that "The point of invasion is to steal Iraq's oil. This is naked confirmation that they intend to seize it, ramp up production, and thus cut the price of oil...They are going to reap a terrible whirlwind from all of this."

But this view from abroad never made it into the US media, which continues in supporting the administrations continuing drumbeat of war.