I think they will go to war, no matter what, but I am sure Iraq is not the only country the US wants a permanent presence in. US troops are already training local military in many Central Asian ex-Soviet republics to "fight the war against terrorism", and it just happens that this area is rich in oil and minerals and strategically very important being so near to China and Russia. Read John Pilger's The New Rulers of the world - this plan is a lot more long-term and has been planned for a lot longer than many seem to realise.

The Kurds have been victim to U.S. sponsored terror campaign in both Turkey and Iraq - in 1988 when the Iraq was using chemical weapons against the Kurds, the U.S. realized that this would wreak havoc with Iraqi agriculture, and therefore provided food-aid to iraq. in turkey, the kurds live in apartheid-like conditions and were victim to a massive military campaign throughout most of the clinton administration (Turkey's "war on terrorism"). How does this fit into the oil question? In iraq, because of the northern no-fly zone, the kurds have gained a considerable degree of autonomy and have set up a participatory government that is in charge of administering whatever aid makes it through the sanctions. the U.S. and the Turkish government have stated repeatedly that if the iraqi kurds try to gain independence in the initial phase of the invasion, this might spark 'kurdish separatists' in Turkey (and presumably another a military repression campaign) - therefore, to prevent the kurds from having the resources to do this, it is our stated policy to seize all of the oil in the northern iraq in the initial phases of the invasion. because turkey has many existing oil contracts with iraq which are to be null and void after the invasion, turkey has requested quite a little bit of aid from the U.S. as well as enjoyed unprecedented U.S. suppport to allow turkey into the EU (though this has been our policy for sometime). even if you were able to demonstrate that the U.S. wants to invade for humanitarian reasons, or is giving due consideration to international law in the process, i think that it is undeniable that the plans for iraqi oil are constructed to serve "the powers that be."