Way, way back in 1990, Murray Rothbard suggested that the Iraq War at that time had the purpose of RAISING the price of oil. The idea was to stop Saddam from cheating on OPEC. Iraq had the capacity to flood the market with oil, break the price, and reap big revenues. Rothbard pointed out the Bush connection to Big Oil, to Texas oil (then suffering from lower prices), and Bush's visit to the Saudis in an effort to keep prices UP.