Bill if I may. The reason we are in Iraq is this; the foundation of our dollar has in the past twenty years become tied to energy futures. Before this we never had any competition for our monetary system because the dollar was King. Now however there is a new player on the horizon; the Euro. Since much of the debt of the U.S. is held by foriegn investors we need to keep oil tied to the dollar as a hedge. The Iraqi's made it clear they were intent in the 1990's on re-structuring oil price in the world market through Euro's; which would remove any influence the U.S. has in the oil market other than as a consumer. No more ability to control price's. Thats why we went to war in reality.