Wolfowitz: Iraq war was about oil

[Drewcifer]

File this under duh. Tip o' the mouse to ASVS, where this link was posted.


Wolfowitz: Iraq war was about oil
George Wright
Wednesday June 4, 2003

Oil was the main reason for military action against Iraq, a leading White House hawk has claimed, confirming the worst fears of those opposed to the US-led war.

The US deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz - who has already undermined Tony Blair's position over weapons of mass destruction (WMD) by describing them as a "bureaucratic" excuse for war - has now gone further by claiming the real motive was that Iraq is "swimming" in oil.

The latest comments were made by Mr Wolfowitz in an address to delegates at an Asian security summit in Singapore at the weekend, and reported today by German newspapers Der Tagesspiegel and Die Welt.

Asked why a nuclear power such as North Korea was being treated differently from Iraq, where hardly any weapons of mass destruction had been found, the deputy defence minister said: "Let's look at it simply. The most important difference between North Korea and Iraq is that economically, we just had no choice in Iraq. The country swims on a sea of oil."

Mr Wolfowitz went on to tell journalists at the conference that the US was set on a path of negotiation to help defuse tensions between North Korea and its neighbours - in contrast to the more belligerent attitude the Bush administration displayed in its dealings with Iraq.

His latest comments follow his widely reported statement from an interview in Vanity Fair last month, in which he said that "for reasons that have a lot to do with the US government bureaucracy, we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on: weapons of mass destruction."

Prior to that, his boss, defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, had already undermined the British government's position by saying Saddam Hussein may have destroyed his banned weapons before the war.

Mr Wolfowitz's frank assessment of the importance of oil could not come at a worse time for the US and UK governments, which are both facing fierce criticism at home and abroad over allegations that they exaggerated the threat posed by Saddam Hussein in order to justify the war.

Amid growing calls from all parties for a public inquiry, the foreign affairs select committee announced last night it would investigate claims that the UK government misled the country over its evidence of Iraq's WMD.

The move is a major setback for Tony Blair, who had hoped to contain any inquiry within the intelligence and security committee, which meets in secret and reports to the prime minister.

In the US, the failure to find solid proof of chemical, biological and nuclear arms in Iraq has raised similar concerns over Mr Bush's justification for the war and prompted calls for congressional investigations.

Mr Wolfowitz is viewed as one of the most hawkish members of the Bush administration. The 57-year old expert in international relations was a strong advocate of military action against Afghanistan and Iraq.

Following the September 11 terror attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon, Mr Wolfowitz pledged that the US would pursue terrorists and "end" states' harbouring or sponsoring of militants.

Prior to his appointment to the Bush cabinet in February 2001, Mr Wolfowitz was dean and professor of international relations at the Paul H Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), of the Johns Hopkins University.

Source

[Sea Skimmer]

If the US was after primarily oil then why didn't it just crush Saudi Arabia under the guise of attacking terrorism and an oppressive regimen, then use the largely if not completely intact oil facilities to flood the world market and crush OPEC?

[Vympel]

If the US was after primarily oil then why didn't it just crush Saudi Arabia under the guise of attacking terrorism and an oppressive regimen, then use the largely if not completely intact oil facilities to flood the world market and crush OPEC?

That assumes that the US aim was to flood the world market and crush OPEC, instead of just controlling the region's oil reserves, which were identified as a strategic prize to be defended since the 1950s.

Personally, I'm starting to think that Dubya sincerely believed WMD were in Iraq and went along for the ride, while all those recycled Reaganites around him were just licking their lips at the prospect of advancing their PNAC.

[Sea Skimmer]

My jury is still quite out, last I heard US inspectors had been to only 200 out of 900 WMD sites, and the country had an additional 3,200 dual use sites.

Anyway, even if all the US wanted was control, Saudi Arabia still makes perfect sense as a target. It also has a fraction of the population to control that's half under the age of 14, as I've said before our main impediment to an invasion would be the need to stronger glass on our windshields to ward off the rocks. The holy cities could create problems, but I suspect. the US could find a Muslim nation willing to supply a few battalions for each one.

[Hamel]

Hohoho ^^

Good stuff.

I'm willing to bet that some people are going to want a billion sources on this before they believe it.

[Joe]

Doubtful. If the U.S. were simply after oil it would just be a matter of lifting sanctions, saving hundreds of billions of dollars in the process.

[Saurencaerthai]

I've personally been one who has thought that if the US was indeed looking for oil, they would have bs'ed their way into invading Saudi. In fact, they could use the war on terrorism as an excuse to do that simply because of the fact that the attack was based out of there.

[Axis Kast]

"Swimming in oil" could mean "is more significant strategically" than "we wanted his cash."

While I think - and support the policy that - this war was probably based at least in part on our wanting to put a friendly régime in Iraq with whose complicity we could keep oil flowing, I think Wolfowitz' remark was as much a statement of reality - i.e.: "We were afraid Saddam could really hurt the region's oil output or damage the market with blustering," - than an admission of pure greed.

I'm still with Skimmer on this one.

[Joe]

I've personally been one who has thought that if the US was indeed looking for oil, they would have bs'ed their way into invading Saudi. In fact, they could use the war on terrorism as an excuse to do that simply because of the fact that the attack was based out of there.

Iraq is the first step in dealing with the Saudi fucktwahs, having a friendly gov't in the Arab world will allow us to take a tougher line against the Saudis in the future (plus it allows us to get our troops out).

[Drewcifer]

-- rebuilding Iraq, specifically its oil infrastructure, means millions in contracts for US businesses.

-- one thing the Iraqis won't stand for is American troops invading mosques and such. How do you think the world Muslim community would react if the US controlled Mecca?

[Sea Skimmer]

-- rebuilding Iraq, specifically its oil infrastructure, means millions in contracts for US businesses.

Billions in fact, but that same money could be spent and go to them in many other ways.

[Vympel]

-- rebuilding Iraq, specifically its oil infrastructure, means millions in contracts for US businesses.

Yup. Read an interesting article stating that Iraq's oil infrastructure before the looting was a schizophrenic mix of Russian, Chinese and French stuff- consequently, the quickest way to get the oil pumping in quantity would be to enlist their assisstance- which the US does not want to do for obvious reasons. They're having an awfully difficult time of finding spare parts. Iraq is currently producing about half of what it was producing before the war started.

-- one thing the Iraqis won't stand for is American troops invading mosques and such. How do you think the world Muslim community would react if the US controlled Mecca?

Screaming bloody murder would be and understatement. It was the very presence of 'infidel' troops in Arabia that set Osama off in the first place.

[Alex Moon]

This quote is taken out of context.

Here is a link to the full transcript.

Here's the relevent portion of the interview.

Look, the primarily difference -- to put it a little too simply -- between North Korea and Iraq is that we had virtually no economic options with Iraq because the country floats on a sea of oil. In the case of North Korea, the country is teetering on the edge of economic collapse and that I believe is a major point of leverage whereas the military picture with North Korea is very different from that with Iraq. The problems in both cases have some similarities but the solutions have got to be tailored to the circumstances which are very different.

Wolfowitz is not saying that we went after Saddam's oil, but that North Korea could be negotiated with on the issue of WMD because economic pressure could be leveraged against them. The administration felt this couldn't be done in Iraq because of Iraq's access to vast amount of oil. [/quote]

[Axis Kast]

Ditto what Alex said.

[Joe]

Thanks for clearing that up, Alex.

[theski]

Yep.. The Guardian is as credible as Newsmax...

[Vympel]

Yep.. The Guardian is as credible as Newsmax...

I gave up on the Guardian a long time ago. The Independent is the only newspaper website I read.

[irishmick79]

By opening access to Iraq's oil reserves, the US should be able to reduce or eliminate its dependence on Saudi oil. Once the US is able to do that, then the Saudi regime becomes expendable, and can be dealt with more belligerently. Now that the US has a position outside of Saudi Arabia in the Middle East from which they can project power, the Americans have alot more options in their dealings with the Saudi kingdom.

[Drewcifer]

Yes, it appears that Mr. Wolfowitz was taken quite out of context. I'm slowly learning why The Guardian garners little respect

Here's another quote, where he defends his statements:

Q: "I'm Satoru Suzuki with TV-Asahi of Japan. Mr. Secretary, eleven weeks have passed since the coalition forces moved into Iraq. Yet you've found no weapons of mass destruction in that country -- no convincing evidence yet. Given that, are you still convinced that you'll be able to find such weapons eventually and, in the absence of such weapons, how can you still justify the war, and what would you say to those critics in Japan and the rest of the world who've been saying that the war was mainly about oil?"

Wolfowitz: "Well, let me start with the last part.  The notion that the war was ever about oil is a complete piece of nonsense. If the United States had been interested in Iraq's oil, it would have been very simple 12 years ago or any time in the last 12 years to simply do a deal with Saddam Hussein.  We probably could have had any kind of preferred customer status we wanted if we'd been simply willing to drop our real concerns.  Our real concerns focused on the threat posed by that country--not only its weapons of mass destruction, but also its support for terrorism and, most importantly, the link between those two things.  You said it's eleven weeks since our troops first crossed the Kuwaiti border, and coalition troops first entered Iraq, as though eleven weeks were a long time.  Eleven weeks is a very short time.  In fact, unfortunately, significant elements of the old regime are still out there shooting at Americans, killing Americans, threatening Iraqis.  It is not yet a secure situation and I believe that probably influences to some extent the willingness of Iraqis to speak freely to us."

Source (another nod to ASVS)

[Dark Hellion]

you know what, I wish this war was about oil. It costs me too damn much to fill up. Why oh why can't we just steal the land with the oil on it and kick them to Syria. It worked with the Indians.

But honestly, its not all about the oil. Or the benjamins. But while the war was not fought for the purest (most pure? [ purerer??]) reasons I feel it was a needed step to curtailing the growing trend of crackpot dictators who do not respect international law. Even if the U.S. and British had to temporarily assume the role of international law.

[NapoleonGH]

Too bad that iraq doesnt sponsor anti-us terrorism, so that isnt a good reason to be attacking them.

Too bad that they could not possibly serve as any threat to us militarily.

so mr. wolfowitz other reasons are just as much bullshit as ever. Typical. and the reason why we didnt go after them during the rest of the time? Becuase we had a non-jingoistic nationalistic bastard as president, our president now is all three , so we go after iraq. Reason why we didnt right during the war was that none of the other countries would have gone for it.

[HemlockGrey]

I'm fairly certain the point of the war was to secure a secular base of operations and support in the Middle East, which is a rather good idea.

[NapoleonGH]

Too bad it was already a secular state, and will probably loose some of the secularness from this action.

Too bad it is immoral

too bad it is illegal

too bad it will bite us in the ass later

[Howedar]

I'll say it again. I agree with what you're saying, but


You're a fucking idiot, Napoleon.

[HemlockGrey]

Too bad it was already a secular state, and will probably loose some of the secularness from this action.

Too bad it is immoral

too bad it is illegal

too bad it will bite us in the ass later

It was a secular, decidingly unfriendly state. There's a difference. I'd also like to point out the immorality in rooting out a bloodthirsty dictator, and I'm frankly baffled by your comment on the legality of the invasion.