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... but Bush isn't about to take that opportunity. The Norwegians and the UN together could be installed for the specific purpose of creating and supervising free elections, to be held in, say, 180 days, to oversee registration of parties and candidates and formation of rules of political party conduct, while the UN went about providing some repair of infrastructure. All that _could_ be done as long as US troops left. There would not be a backlash against the UN, if US troops were gone.
Bush isn't going to take the opportunity, for several reasons, the foremost of which is that doing so deuces every frothing-at-the-mouth corporation vying for control of a totally privatized market in that country. The only way to ensure that is US troops. They aren't going to invest a nickel in Iraq if they aren't sure it can be protected--both literally and from eventual nationalization. This is especially true of the oil companies--they are literally salivating at the prospect of extracting oil for $1.50/bbl (cost to do the same for West Texas intermediate is about $25/bbl).
There were two reasons for this war, and neither of them had a thing to do with terrorism or 9/11/01. The first was to provide a series of permanent US bases there (first, to protect "American interests," meaning Saudi oil without actually having troops on Saudi soil, and second, to engage in more adventurism in the region). The second was to use those troops to encourage complete privatization of the country by US (and a small handful of British) companies--i.e., to create a colonial market system in Iraq.
That's why Bush won't withdraw.
Cheers.
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