The war in Iraq has effected the economy in many different ways. The prises of oil has sunk and risen from day to day. The stock markets have experienced ups and downs. The economy of the USA had a negative trend even before the war started and the way out might be the ruling of Iraq and the oil that comes with the country. But is this right or wrong?

Is oil the reason of war?

The oil has been the subject of many discussions throughout the war and many people thought that the USA just had the oil in mind when they first started to talk about a war against Iraq. But the argument that people use is not quite satisfying. Many say it's all about the oil but it's not explained how the USA could take advantage of it. If the USA really was after the oil they would perhaps not start a war against Saddam. However, the USA will take oil but not for free. A more likely purpose of war is the growing treat of terrorist actions and fear of nuclear weapons. but what about all the other countries that have nuclear weapons? Well, the USA make efforts to prevent the spreading of massdestructon weapons, and Saddam with his ruthlessness and his desire for nuclear weapons made an invasion unavoidable.

Oil prises

The oil reserves in Iraq is about 11 percent of what's been found in the world. The was is very well documented and media covered and that makes every event like major setbacks for the coalition to result in higher prises on oil. The oil prices have changed many times depending on the situations. When the war first began the oil prices went up because of anxiety of a prolonged war and problems in Nigeria helped the prices up as well. The pictures of burning oil fields made people worry about an oil shortage but that will not have a notable affect. Iraq has still about 80 years left of oil extraction. Now that success is obvious for the coalition and Iraqi oil will be available on the world market, the prices will drop and settle.

Rebuilding Iraq

The USA have put down tremendous amounts of money to this war. George W Bush has asked the Congress for a subvention of 75 billion dollars. The cost of rebuilding Iraq is unknown. The coalition forces (Great Britain and the USA) Want the control of Iraq, although they are going to accept help from help organisations. The fact that the USA will rule Iraq is more or less disliked among many. Will the USA make it better for the population in Iraq? Or is it true that all they care about is the oil?. The economy in the USA certainly looks grim. But if the USA will be responsible for the rebuilding and take oil for "payment" the economy will get a boost. The USA doesn't want the tax payers to pay for the rebuilding. Private companies in the USA then will get an opportunity to grow and get more investments because of the big jobs that is created. One point of view to this may be that a country can bomb another country to pieces and then make money out of it. The matter of people rights could easily be forgotten by the greed of man. But not to forget, The USA has succeeded with the plan to free the Iraqi people and defeat Saddam's regime. But even though the USA may have achieved an improvement of human rights, It may just also have broken the international law. Now it's up to people to make their own opinion if it was right or wrong of the coalition to start this war. Now Iraq need a functional government and also schools and hospitals are essential. Is the USA serious to the commitment to rebuild Iraq or are the interests elsewhere?



© 2003 Freeway
Writer: Martin Rylander (sp04-39@park.se).
HTML by: Peter Åström (te04-51@park.se).