Well, your title's half right; "thousands" have yet to die. Even the Iraqi government, who stands to gain the most from inflating the casualty counts, hasn't claimed "thousands", or even one thousand. Or even five hundred, for that matter.

As for this war being about oil: if so, then not just the war, but also the European opposition to it. Europe does, after all, get much more oil from Iraq than the US does, and stands to gain more from the status quo. Which may be why the inspections were designed to never return conclusive proof either way.