Bush's War, Five Years On

"But the visit was being conducted under tight security, reflecting the considerable distance the country has yet to go. The vice president -- as in past visits to war zones -- switched from Air Force Two to a C-17 military transport plane for the flight into Baghdad. Reporters accompanying the White House entourage were asked not to reveal Mr. Cheney's plans to visit the country, or even specific destinations in Iraq until after he had left each one."

In his pool report, McKinnon writes that Cheney is traveling within the C-17 in his "now-familiar shiny steel travel trailer."

Poll Watch

Meanwhile, Iraqis and Americans apparently overwhelmingly agree on one thing: That U.S. troops should go home. Their only dispute is over how fast.

According to the UK's Channel 4, a new poll of Iraqis finds that 70 percent want American troops to leave, compared to 21 percent who want them to stay. Most of those who want troops out say they want them all out immediately.

And Gallup finds that "60% of Americans want the United States to set a timetable for removing troops from Iraq rather than maintain an indefinite military commitment" -- with most of those who want troops out wanting them to come out gradually.

The Oil Factor

Steven Mufson writes in The Washington Post: "We may not know the real motivations behind the Iraq war for years, but it remains difficult to distill oil from all the possibilities."

Mufson outlines the two dominant oil-based theories:

"Version one: Bush, former Texas oilman, and Vice President Cheney, former chief executive of the contracting and oil-services firm Halliburton, wanted to help their friends in the oil world. They sought to install a pro-Western government that would invite the major oil companies back into Iraq. 'Exxon was in the kitchen with Dick Cheney when the Iraq war was being cooked up,' says the Web site of a group called Consumers for Peace.

"Version two: As laid out in an April 2003 article in Le Monde Diplomatique, 'The war against Saddam is about guaranteeing American hegemony rather than about increasing the profits of Exxon.' Yahya Sadowski, an associate professor at the American University of Beirut, argues that 'the neo-conservative cabal' had a 'grand plan' to ramp up Iraqi production, 'flood the world market with Iraqi oil' and drive the price down to $15 a barrel. That would stimulate the U.S. economy, 'finally destroy' OPEC, wreck the economies of 'rogue states' such as Iran and Venezuela, and 'create more opportunities for "regime change." '

But the only part of either of these ostensible plans that came to fruition was that oil company profits did indeed skyrocket. Mufson writes: "In the absence of Iraqi supplies, prices have soared three-and-a-half-fold since the U.S. invasion on March 20, 2003. (Last week, they shattered all previous records, even after adjusting for inflation.) The profits of the five biggest Western oil companies have jumped from $40 billion to $121 billion over the same period. While the United States has rid itself of Saddam Hussein and whatever threat he might have posed, oil revenues have filled the treasuries of petro-autocrats in Iran, Venezuela and Russia, emboldening those regimes and complicating U.S. diplomacy in new ways.

"American consumers are paying for this turmoil at the pump. If the overthrow of Hussein was supposed to be a silver bullet for the American consumer, it turned out to be one that ricocheted and tore a hole through his wallet."

The Biggest Mistake

It's widely considered one of the biggest post-invasion mistakes.