Olbermann commented on this last night in his "Countdown" program on MSNBC. His staffers were able to find 28 incidences of Bush uttering "stay the course" and they were just getting started.

THE IRAQI WAR WILL NOT BE COMPLETED UNTIL THE U.S. GOVERNMENT LED BY OIL ENTHUSIASTS , GEO. “THE WEASEL” BUSH AND HIS SIDEKICK, DICK “THE SLICK” CHENEY, HAVE THE FOUR OIL PHARISEES – EXXON, BP, MOBIL, CHEVRON- ‘PRODUCTION SERVICE AGREEMENTS
(PSA) SIGNED, SEALED AND DELIVERED FROM THE IRAQI GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS WHO HAVE SOLD THEIR COUNTRY’S OIL ASSETS TO THEM…THEN, WILL THE U.S TROOPS WILL COME HOME…

INSOFAR AS STOPPING THE FLOW OF MONIES VIA RESOLUITIONS BY MEMBERS OF THE SELECTED ELITE CLASS OF CRIMINALS CALLED THE U.S. CONGRESS, FORGET IT, IT IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN…MY ARGUMENT IS WELL RESEARCHED AND BE SUBSTANTIATED BY THE ARTILCE LISTED BELOW AND SOME SELECTED EXCERPTS :

Bush's Petro-Cartel Almost Has Iraq's Oil
By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted October 16, 2006.

…It's clear that the U.S.-led invasion had little to do with national security or the events of Sept. 11. Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill revealed that just 11 days after Bush's inauguration in early 2001, regime change in Iraq was "Topic A" among the administration's national security staff, and former Terrorism Tsar Richard Clarke told 60 Minutes that the day after the attacks in New York and Washington occurred, "[Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld was saying that we needed to bomb Iraq." He added: "We all said … no, no. Al-Qaeda is in Afghanistan."

…But serious planning for the war had begun in February of 2002, as Bob Woodward revealed in his book, Plan of Attack. Planning for the future of Iraq's oil wealth had been under way for longer still.
In February of 2001, just weeks after Bush was sworn in, the same energy executives that had been lobbying for Saddam's ouster gathered at the White House to participate in Dick Cheney's now infamous Energy Task Force. Although Cheney would go all the way to the Supreme Court to keep what happened at those meetings a secret, we do know a few things, thanks to documents obtained by the conservative legal group JudicialWatch. As Mark Levine wrote in The Nation($$):
… a map of Iraq and an accompanying list of "Iraq oil foreign suitors" were the center of discussion. The map erased all features of the country save the location of its main oil deposits, divided into nine exploration blocks. The accompanying list of suitors revealed that dozens of companies from 30 countries -- but not the United States -- were either in discussions over or in direct negotiations for rights to some of the best remaining oilfields on earth.
Levine wrote, "It's not hard to surmise how the participants in these meetings felt about this situation."

…But the execs from Big Oil didn't just want access to Iraq's oil; they wanted access on terms that would be inconceivable unless negotiated at the barrel of a gun. Specifically, they wanted an Iraqi government that would enter into production service agreements (PSAs) for the extraction of Iraq's oil.
PSAs, developed in the 1960s, are a tool of today's kinder, gentler neocolonialism; they allow countries to retain technical ownership over energy reserves but, in actuality, lock in multinationals' control and extremely high profit margins -- up to 13 times oil companies' minimum target, according to an analysis by the British-based oil watchdog Platform (PDF).

MOREOVER, I SAY AGAIN, THAT THE TROOPS ARE NOT COMING HOME UNTIL THE OIL/GAS PSA’S ARE SIGNED, SEALED AND DELIVERED TO THE FOUR OIL PHARISEES- EXXON, MOBIL, BP AND CHEVRON…REMEMBER :

S+JIM+RODRIGUEZ+++ECLECTICIST SEEKER+++

Probably so, Jim, but politics is like life: somehow things do not work as planned.

It is about time to work on getting the works done and return our troops home.

My thinking also, but didn't that already occur when the UN granted a 5 year mandate to the US (to expire in 08)? I seem to remember that the PSA then put into effect were the most punitive as 'justified' by the condition of Iraq. Now I can see that with the 5 year time-line now approaching for handing off Iraq to the Iraqui, that the countries who had been waiting in the wings to see how things went with pacification are now five years later still waiting--I don't see a mad rush into Iraq as the same problems still exist. The companies who GB expects to benefit (remember his infamous statement about them 'falling in line' when the time came to divvy up the pie) are neighbors who want to have a secure economic exchange with Iraq, not a fleecing at the point of a gun. The US is the only one who can do that nowadays, but not with impunity as the resistance shows. No country is going to touch that situation with the possible recrimination to their own homeland. They know, and GB forgot, that Iraq is a modern nation, and can be counted on to remember what former friends did.

So, now, I don't think that there will be any rush, although the US would like to broadcast that idea. We, as Colin Powell so eloquently put it, own this problem we created.

The choices seem to be (God Forbid!) GB asking for another 5 year extension, squashing the resistance down to a point that the UN can be put in charge (same problem with major nations). That the resistance has to be done away with is the key; therefore the build up of troops is underway for the heavy hand approach which probably won't work either.

All that potential economic boom just waiting and nobody can touch it. In so far as the US has used up its middle class (credit card debt at all time high, negative savings rate, second mortgages due to collapse and no jobs) in propping up the spend economy, we are probably desperate for another market with money for our goods.

A local newspaper had an item regarding the books about the 3600 dow and how the author felt he was still correct (read Iraqi development) just a few years late. Many's the slip twix the cup and the lip, so the saying goes. Russia managed to avoid the black hole of a privatized economy and now wants to be a player by putting Gazprom stations throughout Europe. It is not beyond my consideration that Russia could join the European union and that's a whole new ball game.

In a nutshell, as what was so apparent in the destruction of the Russian economy, everybody needs to sell and make a profit and that requires markets with money. But the targets also prefer to be the sellers, not just the buyers. Seems to be a problem inherent with capitalism.

Does anybody have the results of the world-wide conference sponsored by Sweden in Japan January 2006 on the future of capitalism?