Nope, Krugman gets it wrong as long as he wears blinders seeing only the "people fighting" of it, and does not see the "controlling the land" of it.

Yeah, Hunt signed a deal for the oil under the land where the Kurds live. That's NOT "bailing out" from Iraq, the military all done and coming home. If anything, it means more military to keep the Kurds in confinement.

US military is in Iraq to defend the oil wells and stand guard at the pipelines. As long as there is oil coming out of that land, whether it is Kurds, Shia, Shiites, Wahhabis, or whatever living there, the military stays and there is NO "bailing out." Get the oil out. That is the mission. Hold back the locals until the oil is out, whoever the locals are. There is a lot of oil to get out, so this may take a while. That's okay, when half the locals are dead, they'll get the message to stay back while the US military is there getting the oil out.

Then they can have their lands back, whoever the locals are, then, remaining, and the US military will go in peace.

Krugman sees it as a "people thing," or something. When the locals get democracy, or something. Democracy, shmemocracy, whatever, as long as they stay back until the US military gets the oil out. Out of the ground, out of the country. Into the military industrial complex, which runs on oil. No oil, no military.

As usual, here comes a link to context information. The writer noticed that as soon as the US military took control of Iraq, in particular control of a oil pipeline already built, from Iraq to Saudi Arabia, with a capacity to move 1.3 million barrels of oil daily, (which Press Reports said was an unused out-of-commission pipeline), the next day Saudi Arabia started 'producing' 1.3 million barrels more oil daily.

Peak Oil, Missing Oil Meters and an Inactive Pipeline: The Real Reason for the Invasion of Iraq?

Krugman says follow the money. When he searches around for information on the internet to put in his column -- IF he WOULD -- Krugman might learn all that matters is follow the oil.

Paul Chefurka's other writings are very good and informative, also, on his home page

Would you agree that Hunt is bailing on the central government of Iraq?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20657196/site/newsweek/

Jack, I disagree there IS a 'central government.'

Rotating figureheads in musical chairs, is what I see. A military dictatorship, and the 'titled' officeholders are props.

Eh?

With the air power 'enforcement,' and the surveillance overhead covering every. square. foot. nothing moves that is not known. That (surveillance) is how it could be known, and I knew, there were NO WMDs before. It is impossible to hide anything. There are no 'enemy squads' hiding behind boulders, off in the distant hills, or something. There are no 'battle front' lines or zones, not even in the urban areas. Listen: every. square. foot. every fifteen minutes, more frequent in inhabited areas, computer-compared and -filtered to flag any thing that moves, (it's not some security 'jockies' sitting at banks of monitors, 'watching closely').

So, what's this 'government' you speak of?