Little evidence exists to support any of this. But it sticks anyway because leftists find the "no war for oil" argument convenient. It fits well on a bumper sticker, after all, and dovetails with their overarching thesis that Mr. Bush is a mere pawn of America's oil barons and bomb-makers. Then there's the precedent of the first Gulf War, which -- let's face it -- really was about oil. That is to say, it was a just campaign aimed at preventing a regional thug from cornering the world's oil supply. But take a close look at the modern "no war for oil" argument and it crumbles like cheap stucco. The simple fact is that Americans already have access to Iraq's black gold: The United States is Saddam's number-one buyer. Moreover, war would not be an efficient way to open the spigots further. If Iraq's oil fields were upgraded with state-of-the-art technology, they would yield about 6 or 7 million barrels of oil daily by 2007. The fact they only produce a third of that is owed to UN sanctions, which block investment and restrict the importation of industrial machinery. If Mr. Bush were really after cheap oil, he would beg the UN to end sanctions, and reassure the world that Iraq was open for business.
Other countries already have some heavy business deals struck with Iraq. We already know that Iraq's primary business partner is Germany. Germany stands to lose very little in post-Hussein Iraq; they do, however, have reason not to endorse war and Schroeder's anti-US rantings during his election campaign was clearly just as much a protection of those business dealings as it was a cheap way to gain status among the German electorate.
Anyway, read the whole thing, it's good.