"The invasion of Iraq was simply a war crime, straight out war crime... The United States invaded Iraq to gain control of one of the major sources of the world's energy, right in the heart of the world's energy producing regions, to create, if they can, a dependent client state, to have permanent military bases, and to gain what's called 'critical leverage' - I'm quoting Zbigniew Brzezinski - to gain critical leverage over rivals, the European and Asian economies... It's been understood since the Second World War, that if you have your hand on that spigot, the main source of the world's energy - you have what early planners called 'veto power' over others. Iraq is also the last part of the world where there are vast, untapped, easily accessible energy resources. And you can be sure that they want the profits from that to go primarily to U.S.-based multi-nationals and back to the U.S. Treasury, and so on. Not to rivals. There are plenty of reasons for invading Iraq."
- Noam Chomsky, HB0's Real Time with Bill Maher, November 5th, 2004
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