Wolfowitz: Iraq war was about oil

[nicky g]

Ahem


4.30pm update

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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 post 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.

War was about oil

[MMMMMM]

nicky I fear you may be muddying the difference between "factor" and "motive" a little bit.

If Iraq could hold a large part of the world's oil supply hostage (through nuclear blackmail or other means) that's a HUGE factor, especially given Saddam's lack of hesitation in setting the oilfields ablaze previously.

That doesn't mean we did it to steal their oil or anything remotely close to that. Nor do Wolfowitz' comments imply such. Ensuring access to world oil markets is a good thing for everyone including the Iraqi people.

I think you may be oversimplifying and muddying just a wee bit here.

And come on why don't you just admit it: that all in all, the war was a very good thing, with many large positives and far fewer negatives than anticipated--in other words, it was a big plus for the world and even a big plus for the Iraqis.

[Dr Wogga]

....he is blinded by anti-Bush, anti-Blair, anti-US, pro-French, pro-Arab attitudes to ever admit that any good came out of the Iraq war. If anybody starts up a "Send Nicky G to Iraq or France Fund" put me down as a contributor. Yessirree baghdad bob. Count me in on that one

[nicky g]

Well now, I didn't actually say anything in that post - it was all the article. But the point isn't about "stealing" oil - it's about oil being the real main factor, as opposed to WMD, human rights, etc. Wolfowitz make it clear that that without oil, thered have been no war - that's how important it was. Access to oil markets may be important but it's not a legitimate reason to invade countries and topple governments. The main reason Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990 was because Kuwait was depressing the price of oil by exceeding its OPEC production quota, crippling Iraq's economy. Your logic pretty much justifies such a decision - oil markets are important enough to invade sovereign countries.

There don't seem to be any reliable figures on Iraqi deaths in the war, but most figures I've seen suggest about 4000-5000 civilian deaths and 10000-20000 dead soldiers. A BBC embedded correspondent said at a talk I went to that the military were privately saying that the number of dead Iraqi soldiers was far higher than public estimates. He said he couldn't believe how much destruction he saw. That's a lot of dead people. Furthermore the country is now in a total state of collapse. Of course, that's not newsworthy. It's not being democratically governed and only a "representative" Iraqi government is promised - and that not for another year. The country is covered with depleted uranium and unexploded cluster bombs, which were illegally fired on civilian areas, as the British Ministry of Defence now admit (I'm sure the war crimes tribunal will come a long any day now). Oh, and to top it all off, following a war we're laughably told was meant to prevent the proliferation of dangerous materials, Iraqi nuclear sites have been looted and a bunch of radioactive material is missing - quite possibly enough to build a dirty radioactive bomb. Yeah man, the war was just terrific.

[nicky g]

All you have to do is convince my wife. Do that, and I'll pay for my own ticket. (Don't bother to address the article, by the way, that'd be irrelevant).

[Dr Wogga]

[HDPM]

It's hard to argue with stuff that comes out of Wolfowitz's mouth. I'm actually a bit surprised by the statements, although I am much more surprised by their honesty than content. Pretty damning statements all in all.

[Dr Wogga]

....hopefully you will answer yes or no, without dancing and weaving:

is it your position that Iraq with Saddam Hussein is preferable to an Iraq without him?

[Graham]

....hopefully you will answer yes or no, without dancing and weaving:

errm, the weaving started with M and yourself without nicky posting a word of his own. Basically it went (paraphrasing):

nickyg: "here's an article that has Wolfowitz saying the war was about the oil and WMD was the excuse"

M: "nicky, you're muddying and confusing things", followed by side-arguments away from the subject that the war was just a good thing anyway and putting words in nicky's mouth about "stealing oil, so that M can then refute them".

Dr Wogga: "Sure, we know that, silly." (...well, that would have been your best response to "here's an article that has Wolfowitz saying the war was about the oil and WMD was the excuse")

G

[MMMMMM]

1. nicky's "ahem" showed that he shared Mr. Wright's opinion that Wolfowitz had said the war was all about oil

2. Reading Wolfowitz' comments carefully, one can see that this is not what Wolfowitz said. Saying oil was a major or even pivotal factor is very different than saying the war was all about oil.

By the way, in the last U.S. Presidential elections, the Florida vote was pivotal. This isn't nearly the same as the election being all about the Florida vote.