Is there any real evidence that oil or Cheney's company Halliburton were the primary reason for USA's invasion of Iraq?

The US certainly did not claim Iraq's oil as plunder of war, or anything ludicrous like that. Iraq owns Iraq's oil. This isn't World War II, where nations drove entire strategic campaigns around capturing oilfields as national assets. US troops left the oil behind when they departed the country. US companies must bid and compete for Iraqi oil contracts on a level playing field with all the other global companies interested in the region. There's minimal direct US benefit. The military cost of the war was certainly vastly higher than any possible economic value to oil companies.

What is reasonable to claim is that the US probably would not care so much about conflict in the Middle East if the region did not have massive oil reserves. Oil is one of the main reasons the entire Middle East is geopolitically significant. That's a big part of why we cared that Saddam invaded Kuwait, for example.

The only "credible evidence" anyone has ever been able to use to suggest the US invaded for oil is the fact that securing oilfields was a major discussion and planning point prior to the invasion. And it's absolutely true that securing oilfields was a meaningful strategic objective during the initial invasion. There were two extremely valid reasons for that. In fact, it would have been utterly negligent to do anything else.

During the liberation of Kuwait, Saddam deliberately blew up and set on fire Kuwait's oil wells as his forces retreated. He also opened an entire oil export pipeline onto the coast, creating the largest oil spill in world history. (No, the Deepwater Horizon spill was not the largest as many Americans believe. The largest was a deliberate military action, so many oil spill lists ignore it.) The goal of all this oil-spilling and oil-burning was to delay the invading Marines with a wall of fire and deprive the Kuwaitis and US of the captured resources. This scorched-earth tactic was incredibly damaging in the first Gulf War. President Bush Sr was criticized heavily for allowing it to happen, particularly by environmentalists. Preventing a repeat was critical to the second Iraq invasion's success for multiple reasons:

• Burning oil is extremely toxic, and the Kuwait oil fires caused incredible air pollution and habitat damage for hundreds of miles. The noxious smoke blacked out the sun -- the Kuwaiti countryside was bathed in perpetual night, and ash and toxic black rain fell for months. Extinguishing the fires took almost a year of heroic and dangerous firefighting effort. Keeping the Iraqi oil wells intact prevented an absolutely massive environmental calamity.
• Oil is Iraq's chief economic export. Keeping the Iraqi oil infrastructure intact was critical to minimizing economic damage. It was key to ensuring the country had sufficient cashflow and balance of trade to rebuild itself after the invasion. On top of the direct damage and lost production during repairs, uncontrolled blowouts can permanently damage the oil reservoir itself, thereby possibly reducing the oilfields' productive potential forever.

So if you think the environment matters, and/or if you think the economic success of the region after the invasion matters, protecting the oilfields from sabotage had to be a key strategic objective. The only hope for a quick post-invasion recovery relied on keeping Saddam from destroying the oilfields. That's why they were heavily emphasized in the pre-war planning. It was a simple lesson learned from the first Gulf War in Kuwait.

The stuff about Cheney and Halliburton's no-bid contracts? Not controversial at all when you actually look into what happened. The Pentagon simply executed a pre-existing contract with KBR. At the time of original contract tender (years before the invasion) they were the only company with the necessary technical qualifications and logistical reach to be able to do the work. That's very reasonable -- in fact, it would have been wrong to do anything else.

So no, I'm not aware of any credible evidence to support the claim that the US invaded Iraq for oil. There are valid explanations for every proposed conflict of interest or bad intent prior to the war. And the actual flows of oil and money after the invasion simply don't support the premise that it was executed for the personal gain of oilmen.

Read other answers by

Ryan Carlyle on Quora:

• What do people mean when they claim that the war in Iraq was over oil?
• What evidence exists to support the claim that the United States intervened in the Middle East solely for oil?
• Why don't countries with large oil reserves cease drilling in order to have a monopoly later on when the price of oil will likely be higher?

Read more answers on Quora.

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