UN, not U.S., controls Iraq's oil revenue.

This is in response to your criticism of my earlier letter wherein I state that the war in Iraq is not about oil. I am in good company in that view with Daniel Yergin, author of the Pulitzer Prizewinning book The Prize, a history of the world oil industry. Yergin writes, in The Washington Post, "If oil is the question, Iraq is not the answer ... it requires several leaps of logic ... to conclude that the current Iraq crisis is all about oil." In response to my statement that the U.S. was buying Iraq oil on the open market with no difficulty before the war, you stated, "Isn't there a difference between buying oil and controlling the flow of both the oil and the profits from its sale? If you run the store, you can cut yourself a pretty nice deal." Be advised that all the revenue from Iraq's oil is being put into a fund controlled by the United Nations (UN Resolution 1483) to be used for the benefit of the Iraqis. I would add that this is quite an improvement over using the oil revenues to build multiple palaces.

WALTER YOUNGQUIST

Eugene, Oregon