From: "John Beamish" 

Phil can speak for himself, but I'm guessing his reply will be "Not
'in place of' but 'in addition to'."

For example:

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2132569.ece

Iraq's massive oil reserves, the third-largest in the world, are about to
be thrown open for large-scale exploitation by Western oil companies under
a controversial law which is expected to come before the Iraqi parliament
within days.

The US government has been involved in drawing up the law, a draft of which
has been seen by The Independent on Sunday. It would give big oil companies
such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and
allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the
country since the industry was nationalised in 1972.

The huge potential prizes for Western firms will give ammunition to critics
who say the Iraq war was fought for oil. They point to statements such as
one from Vice-President Dick Cheney, who said in 1999, while he was still
chief executive of the oil services company Halliburton, that the world
would need an additional 50 million barrels of oil a day by 2010. "So
where is the oil going to come from?... The Middle East, with two-thirds of
the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately
lies," he said.

On Sun, 07 Jan 2007 23:41:17 -0500, Geo.  wrote:

> "Phil Payne" 
wrote in message
> news:45a18c27$1{at}w3.nls.net...
>
>> There is a deep-seated American urge to respond to every world event -
>> at
>> home or abroad - with violence.
>
> Well that certainly is an improvement on the oil is the motivator line
> you usually use. So now we're just mean by nature?
>
> Geo.

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