Home > The real reasons Bush went to war
WMD was the rationale for invading Iraq. But what was really driving the US were fears over oil and the future of the dollar
by John Chapman
There were only two credible reasons for invading Iraq: control over oil and preservation of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. Yet the government has kept silent on these factors, instead treating us to the intriguing distractions of the Hutton and Butler reports.
Butler’s overall finding of a "group think" failure was pure charity. Absurdities like the 45-minute claim were adopted by high-level officials and ministers because those concerned recognised the substantial reason for war - oil. WMD provided only the bureaucratic argument: the real reason was that Iraq was swimming in oil.
Some may still believe the eve-of-war contention by Donald Rumsfeld that "We won’t take forces and go around the world and try to take other people’s oil ... That’s not how democracies operate." Maybe others will go along with Blair’s post-war contention: "There is no way whatsoever, if oil were the issue, that it would not have been infinitely easier to cut a deal with Saddam."
But senior civil servants are not so naive. On the eve of the Butler report, I attended the 40th anniversary of the Mandarins cricket club. I was taken aside by a knighted civil servant to discuss my contention in a Guardian article earlier this year that Sir Humphrey was no longer independent. I had then attacked the deceits in the WMD report, and this impressive official and I discussed the geopolitical issues of Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and US unwillingness to build nuclear power stations and curb petrol consumption, rather than go to war.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1270414,00.html
Forum posts
28 July 2004, 21:56
What about the fact the the sanctions on Iraq had helped to recruit 20,000 freedom fighters,
that the necessary presence of troops in the gulf contributed to 20,000 freedom fighters.
That peace between Israel and Palestine is stagnated by Saddams Iraq. The paramount concern for long term peace. It can’t be good in the short term, and good in the long term, things have to get worse before they get better.
That the difficulties of a stable Afghanistan meant a lack of a real victory for the US.
Afghanistan has no way to provide for itself, it is a welfare state, or a drug producer.
The terrain and history make its successful transition almost impossible.
Iraq has an infrastructure, has a means to provide for itself, and can be a viable democratic country that can flourish, unlike afghanistan.
Now the war in Iraq has bolstered terrorism in the short term, but the actions before the war bolstered it in the long term, and to a terminal degree.
Also, most freedom fighters do not make a distinction between the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, the war in Chechnya, the war in Kosovo.
Our reasons or justifications for going to war, meaning a just war in Afghanistan, do not impact the ideas of freedom fighters. They react to an unjust war and a just war all the same, so the argument of the unjust Iraq war being an unacceptable increase to freedom fighter recruitment is mute, because the freedom fighters respond whether or not world actions in defense or offense are justifiable or not.
So Chapman stated there are only two plausible reasons for the war in Iraq, and I just quickly mentioned at least three more, all directed completely at securing peace and stability in the future. Show me a country that doesn’t act out of self interest, fortunately our self interest is peace and prosperity so we can all make a dollar and not get blown up.
So the arab world might want to actually thank the terrorists, because ironically they are going to get some of what they wanted, reform of repressive arab regimes, and peace between Israel and Palestine, and who knows how long that would have taken without those dedicated freedom fighters to scare America into protecting its self-interests.
P.S. He wants US to build more nuclear power plants. Hello, we lived through that time, it wasn’t popular. Go ask someone who lived in chernobyl or three mile island. There are simple reasons that nuclear power plants do not pop up all over the place, no one wants it in their neighborhood. Plus the biproduct of nuclear power is nuclear weapons, and there are not two ways about that unless you want more nuclear waste.
Also, what about those people in America and around the world who oppose drilling in the Artic wildlife refuge. Bush was not one of them, therefore he chose a side that put him against a foreign dependance on oil by increasing local reserves, and those who were against drilling in the ARWF ironically, according to Chapman, were pulling US closer to war.
Things are not so simple, and there are more than two credible reasons for the war in Iraq
P.P.S. today the freedom fighters moved themselves one step closer (or farther away) to their goals by murdering 68 civilian iraqis that wanted to help their country move forward. That is the definition of terrorism. When an arab country tries to help iraq, kidnap and kill one of them, and watch how no one lines up to be next. When an iraqi tries to help his country, blow him up, assasinate him, and watch who lines up to be next. When countries try to support peace and stability in iraq cut their heads off, and see who lines up to be next. Terror works. Oh, sorry, freedom fighting works. But who is it working for, not Iraq, not the middle east, not the world, but a group of religious fanatics who have the idea of forced religious compliance and compulsion to satiate their wounded egos and to bring them back to their rightful place in gods eyes.
So, whose gonna line up to help iraq now, and who is going to leave it to the taliban???
Taliban, Saddam, does it matter, in the end, the situation cannot be any worse than it was, but it can be better. We Americans and Europeans have a responsibility to line up and make sure that it is better, because our forefathers sure as all hell had a role in putting it into the "cannot get any worse" category. We helped to fuck the region in WW1, WW2 and the cold war, and if we don’t unfuck it, then we have no legs to stand on.
P.P.P.S. Chapman also ignores the simple reality of the fact that America had no, and has no intention of controlling Iraqi oil any more than we control Saudi oil.
Under what possible circumstance can anyone imagine that the world would just let the US control Iraqi oil for all time? For even five years? We all know the Iraqis and the world would not accept America doing that. So it is clear, and Americas actions have shown we do not intend to colonialize Iraq and control it. We want an Iraq that can be a part of the world and that can add to it rather than detract from it. Because that is in our self interest.
How many places in this world could America control if it wanted to, a few, but not that many, because quite simply colonialism and imperialism do not work. How many latin america countries have nationalized, who controls the panama canal??? What did the Brits do with Hong Kong.
Connect the dots, and you see that most of what people accuse is simply not possible and not plausible, and it is completely rediculous because it would not work. That America is out for the oil. Which is a prerequisite for strengthening of the American dollar and muscling OPEC, which is in chapmans article but not on Bellaciao, and was the entire point of the "The real reasons Bush went to war" article. That insinuation in reality does not stand up.