is the obvious: becauseIraq has a lot of oil, access to that oil would represent an importantprofit-making opportunity. Whats more, Iraqi oil can be easily extracted andthus produced at very low cost. With all oil selling at the same price on theworld market, Iraqi oil thus presents opportunities for especially largeprofits per unit of production. According to the Guardian newspaper (London), Iraqi oil could cost as little as 97cents a barrel to produce, compared to the UKs North Sea oil produced at $3 to$4 per barrel. As one oil executive told the Guardian last November, "Ninety cents a barrel for oil thatsells for $30thats the kind of business anyone would want to be in. A 97% profitmarginyou can live with that." The Guardiancontinues: "The stakes are high. Iraq could be producing 8 million barrelsa day within the decade. The math is impressive8 million times 365 at $30 perbarrel or $87.5 billion a year. Any share would be worth fighting for."The question for the oil companies is: what share will they be able to claimand what share will be claimed by the Iraqi government? The split wouldundoubtedly be more favorable for the oil companies with a compliant U.S.-installedgovernment in Baghdad. Furthermore,the conflict is not simply one between the private oil companies and thegovernment of Iraq. The U.S.-based firms and their British (and British-Dutch)allies are vying with French, Russian, and Chinese firms for access to Iraqioil. During recent years, firms from these other nations signed oil explorationand development contracts with the Hussein government in Iraq, and, if therewere no "regime change," they would preempt the operations of theU.S. and British firms in that country. If, however, the U.S. governmentsucceeds in replacing the government of Saddam Hussein with its preferredallies in the Iraqi opposition, the outlook will change dramatically. Accordingto Ahmed Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress and a figure in the Iraqiopposition who seems to be currently favored by Washington, "The futuredemocratic government in Iraq will be grateful to the United States for helpingthe Iraqi people liberate themselves and getting rid of Saddam.... American companies,we expect, will play an important and leading role in the future oilsituation." (In recent years, U.S. firms have not been fully frozen out ofthe oil business in Iraq. For example, according to a June 2001 report in the Washington Post, while Vice PresidentCheney was CEO at Halliburton Company during the late 1990s, the firm operatedthrough subsidiaries to sell some $73 million of oil production equipment andspare parts to Iraq.)The rivalrywith French, Russian and Chinese oil companies is in part driven by the directprize of the profits to be obtained from Iraqi operations. In addition, inorder to maintain their dominant positions in the world oil industry, it isimportant for the U.S. and British-based firms to deprive their rivals of thegrowth potential that access to Iraq would afford. In any monopolisticindustry, leading firms need to deny their potential competitors marketposition and control of new sources of supply; otherwise, those competitorswill be in a better position to challenge the leaders. The British Guardian reports that the Husseingovernment is "believed to have