Corli: You can do it yourself. Pick whatever it is that concerns you, find out how much it is valued, then divide by the current value of a barrel of oil. That ignores a whole bunch of stuff, but it should get you dialed in to a first order approximation. I've been hearing a figure of $300 Billion for the US involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq. I've heard that a barrel of crude is going for $45. Throw in another $5 for refining and distribution costs (and to make the math easier), then divide the second number into the first and you get 6 Billion barrels. Of course, $300 Billion isn't going purely for oil, but you can make an argument that oil is involved in every phase of the enterprise. Men and materials are being shipped overseas in ships that burn crude, or high performance ships and aircraft that burn kerosene.

In 1990 Saddam invaded another mideast country (Kuwait) and on his retreat he ordered that Kuwait's oil wells be put to the flame. The Iraqis also caused millions of barrels of oil to be dumped into the Persian Gulf. Check out:

Iraqi burning and dumping of Kuwaiti Oil

I think there is a typo in there. The report says that 8,000,000 million barrels of oil were dumped, I suspect they meant to say 8 million barrels of oil were dumped.

Robo, who wishes he were on the waiting list for a Toyota Prius.