This analysis goes all the way back to January, but I did not know about the 2002 Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the group “Judicial Watch”.

By BEN LANDO
UPI Energy Correspondent

WASHINGTON Jan. 25 (UPI) — Most Americans think President Bush invaded Iraq at least partly because of its oil — a war more than half rate him as “poor” in handling and nearly all say has affected the price of gas at the pump.

The UPI/Zogby International interactive poll of 6,909 U.S. adults Jan. 16-18 found 32.7 percent considered Iraq’s oil supply a “major factor” and 23.7 percent “not a factor” in the decision to invade the country. Another 40.7 percent were split somewhere in between while 2.9 percent were “not sure.”

The poll, released Tuesday, had a margin of error of 1.2 percent and comes as Iraq’s draft oil law — still mired in factional fighting — has become a main focus of the Bush administration.

The law is one of Bush’s benchmarks for success for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and if the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds agree on it, it is seen as a pathway for easing tensions altogether.

Also,documents obtained in a 2002 Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the conservative legal group Judicial Watch found Vice President Dick Cheney’s secret Energy Task Force included maps and charts of Iraq’s oil infrastructure and projects as well as a list of “Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts.”

A pre-war oil and energy working group of the U.S. State Department’s Future of Iraq project also focused on Iraq’s oil sector.

The U.S. Agency for International Development in 2004 announced an Iraq contract with McLean, Va.-based consultant BearingPoint for “broad economic reform,” BearingPoint spokesman Steve Lunceford told UPI Oct. 18.

He said it included “privatization of the oil industry.”

Read the entire story at UPI’s website.