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Alan Greenspan claims Iraq war was really for oil

by Open-Publishing - Sunday 16 September 2007
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Wars and conflicts International Energy USA

Alan Greenspan claims Iraq war was really for oil

Graham Paterson – Sunday Times September 16, 2007

America’s elder statesman of finance, Alan Greenspan, has shaken the White House by declaring that the prime motive for the war in Iraq was oil.

In his long-awaited memoir, to be published tomorrow, Greenspan, a Republican whose 18-year tenure as head of the US Federal Reserve was widely admired, will also deliver a stinging critique of President George W Bush’s economic policies.

However, it is his view on the motive for the 2003 Iraq invasion that is likely to provoke the most controversy. “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil,” he says.

Greenspan, 81, is understood to believe that Saddam Hussein posed a threat to the security of oil supplies in the Middle East.

Britain and America have always insisted the war had nothing to do with oil. Bush said the aim was to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction and end Saddam’s support for terrorism.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article2461214.ece

Last updated 16/09/2007

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=7191

Forum posts

  • And for supporting the USD that has value thanks to oil ...

    And for launching WW3 that was planned decades ago ...

    Greenspan is largely complicit of it as former chairman of the illegal FED. Trying to blame others like Brzezinski.

    • The illegal FED? The FED was fine for years. Never heard a word about the FED. Truth is, the FED has kept the USA going with unprecedented growth. People bought homes, autos, the necessities of life and raised families. The USA is a free country. Being free, people are free to make dumb choices and do stupid things. People are even free to not seek higher education and then try to suck off the system and complain when their time doesn’t pay anything. The FED no matter how hard they try can’t protect “stupid is as stupid does”. Now all of a sudden, stupid, the FED is bad. Little wonder why? It is still a free country. Get it?

    • The point being missed though is why should Americans pay billions in interest to a private for profit organization like the Federal Reserve when the U.S. government itself could coin money and any interest could go for the use of taxpayers rather than a few private individuals and their cronies. I’m surprised to hear one say they have never "heard a word about the Fed" when these ideas about who should have the power to coin money go back even to the days of the Founders and beyond.

  • Yes, for oil! But also for bases, and for installing a military machine that would threaten the entire Middle East. And, also for permanent warfare which meant permanent huge profits for the military industrial cronies of the Bushies. Warfare is glorious for a few chicken hawks that don’t actually have to fight or shed blood, but merely wave flags and quote from the Bible. Yes, glorious for profiteering cowards!

  • That crafty old coot Greenspan. He knows full well that the Iraq invasion was not about oil, but about how oil is paid for. Saddam had switched to a euro-denominated payment system for Iraqi oil and, thereby, threatened to bring the entire petro-dollar edifice crashing down on the FED’s head. His criticism of the Bush rationale for the war with Iraq is either a smoke screen or he’s gone senile.

  • Apparently, it has come to pass in the great country of America where nearly everyone from the very top down to the lowest worm crawling the back woods now believes in the unitary theory of news. And why not capitulate to the news organizations? OK, we adhere to the premise that the world’s only as complex as the media, particularly the Infotainment evening news, portrays it to be. Thus, the "War on Terror" - once supposedly dedicated solely to the aim of eliminating terror - has been given numerous revisions, until, now, the issue is so complex that one has to wonder how Joe Sixpack can fathom the truth. So, what the hell, let’s give the maestro a shot at discerning the true story: Oil. Keep it simple.

    Forget the long-winded PNAC declaration, the long-standing aim to make Zionism safe for the next millennium, making the world safer for Democracy, the chemical and nuclear weapons that didn’t exist, the roque dictator conspiring with bin Laden, it’s now Oil.

    By the way, did Greenspan spend much time studying Iran’s difficulty with Oil (they had religious objections regarding the refinery part, which is why there’s a shortage there)? How in the world, given the legacy of corruption, the lack of an equitable oil distribution plan, sectarian strife, the lack of a drilling infrastructure, was oil in Iraq ever going to be lucrative for the U.S.? Except of course for the companies servicing the industry. But then how was there going to be sufficient security for that development? Remember Cheney’s original assessment of the difficulty in establishing order in Iraq during the Gulf War?

    Oil? Sure if the Iraqis would just hand it over out of gratitude for wacking their brutish leader. But first they’ve got to divide it up, markedly increase drilling, and then establish trading deals. Doesn’t sound difficult to an MBA out of Wharton, but how does this sound to the Iraqi commoner who doesn’t have enough electricity to keep food cold?

    That isn’t to say the Neocons didn’t have their eye on oil. Of course they did. But, moreover, being neoimperialists, they designed their startegy based on the traditionally wicked aims of an empire, which routinely collects all the booty it can get away with. Throw in cheap labor, building contracts, fast-food franchises, a few banks here and there, and, oh yeah, hotels, plenty of sparkling hotels for those hot Mess-o-patamia weekend getaways. But of course this plethora of aims is far too complicated for the average news consumer. So let’s stick with oil. It leaves out all those other complexities.