According to a theory supported by an Al Jazeera news report, the United States has stolen approximately 20 trillion dollars worth of gold and 30 trillion dollars worth of oil. This claim is also backed up by photos of American soldiers posing with Iraqi gold bars.

To get to the bottom of this, let’s dissect each individual claim:

1. $30 trillion worth of oil was stolen.

Mostly false.

After the conclusion of the Iraqi invasion, Iraqi oil was sold for the Development Fund of Iraq (DFI). However, in July 2010, the US Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) found that the US Department of Defense couldn’t account for $8.7 billion of DFI funds. The Iraqi parliament then requested the United Nations to help them get back the $17 billion of “oil money” that it said was stolen from the Iraqi people by the US.

2. $20 trillion worth of gold was stolen.

False.

The soldiers may have posed with the gold but they didn’t keep it! The soldiers are members of the 230th Finance Battalion who are assigned to seize Iraqi assets. These gold bars were transported to Kuwait to be analyzed for purity and value. Afterwards, they were sent to the Central Iraqi Treasury.

Also, take note that the value of all the gold ever mined in the world is at $8.2 trillion!

3. Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction and is not involved in 9/11.

True.

After the US forces occupied Iraq, they couldn’t find any weapons of mass destruction. While the Bush Administration implied a link between Saddam and the 9/11 attacks, they never declared this outright.

4. Americans invaded Afghanistan after invading Iraq.

False.

It’s the other way around – the US invaded Afghanistan first.

5. The Americans invaded Afghanistan to get to the poppy fields and lithium mines.

False.

They invaded Afghanistan because the Taliban wouldn’t extradite Osama bin Laden to the United States and they wouldn’t expel al-Quaeda from the country.

Also, the massive lithium deposit in Afghanistan was only discovered years later in 2007. As for the poppies, considering America’s stand against the drug trade (with the War on Drugs back in 1982), America has no interest in the drug trade. If they were, the US would have stayed after the Soviet withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989.

Watch the Al Jazeera news report here:

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This report is from 2011. They never claimed that the United States stole Iraqi gold and oil. Instead, it highlights the $6.6 billion in funds that couldn’t be accounted for due to missing documents. Osama al-Nujaifi, the Iraqi Parliament Speaker, disputed the figure in 2011, saying that the Development Fund of Iraq lost $18.7 billion instead.

So you see, it pays to read through EVERYTHING before you read headlines and fall into the conspiracy theory trap!