Of Course the War Was About Oil

Drudge has a red banner headline SHOCK: GREENSPAN CLAIMS IRAQ WAR WAS REALLY FOR OIL .

Of course it was.

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.

When Saddam went into Kuwait in 1990 and was poised to move into Saudi Arabia, he could have imperilled the oil supplies to much of the world, not to mention the U.S. The first gulf war was all about ensuring the free flow of oil at market prices.

Saddam's motivations weren't any better in 2003, and as long as he continued to exist, the entire Persian Gulf was a risk from whatever wacky scheme he came up with. If Bush went to war in '03 to guarantee continued oil supplies to much of the world, good for him.

Of course, when the lefties scream "No War for Oil", they think going to war for oil means going to war to guarantee profits to oil companies, not to guarantee that oil will be available at reasonable prices to keep our and other economies going. That may not be important to the lefties, but I guarantee you they'd have a whole different view of it if suddenly they couldn't fuel up their Priuses.