Its not about physically owning the oil. Its about having control over it. Besides your not thinking on a global scale.

Its a fact that the US debt is at nearly 9 trillion dollars. An amount we can not pay. If tomorrow the government took everything ever person in the US owned and sold it, it still wouldn't be enough to pay off what we owe. The US is basicly bankrupt and our money is worthless. Now what Ynot is saying is this. Even though our money is basicly an IOU with no real value, people still need it in order to buy oil, and as long as they need it there is some value to it. Now if for some reason you no longer need the money to buy oil, there is no value left in it. Its just a piece of paper, worth about as much as monopoly money.

So then the question is moved away from should we attack iraq or risk terroist attack? To should we attack or risk the total collapse of our economy? Of course the government can't say that, as it would cause massive panic and likely collapse our economy from the inside as people start ditching the dollar for something with value.