From The Sunday Times
September 16, 2007
Alan Greenspan claims Iraq war was really for oil
Graham Paterson

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.

-- Modified on 9/16/2007 10:24:37 AM

administration is that they were always so transparent.

The bad thing about Americans is that they're so fucking gullible that most of them will buy the first cheapest shit out of the mouth of president, as long as it doesn't need a 3 digit IQ to understand.

One of the more interesting excerpts from the book is that Greenspan had the highest praise for Bill Clinton of any of the Presidents he worked with (from Reagan to W) saying Clinton maintained “a consistent, disciplined focus on long-term economic growth.”

Wonder how the Bushies will try to spin this one.

Of course it was about the oil. The entire world's economy relies on it. Wars have been fought for a whole lot less.

Clinton let a woman give him a blow job in the Oval Office!  Dear god!  What will our children do!  He smoked marijuana too!  

Oh yeah, I guess the weed thing isn't a big deal anymore since we have an ex-drunk, cokehead in office now.  Drugs and alcohol are okay if you're a born-again (or at least pretend to be born-again!).

wars for resources are fundamental, but the way those wars are rationalized and prosecuted has a lot to do with cultural ideas of proper social structures.

You can't expect a politician to make the other side's argument, but there's only so much poetic license, and only a normal amount of stupidity is understandable.

When the result in Iraq was so obviously going to be a clusterfuck, exactly why did Bush have to jump before he caught Bin Laden?   How stupid do you have to be, to open a 2nd front when you don't have to?

I really cannot believe the White House was that stupid.  So my view is they were only moderately stupid, but the are in fact acheiving a lot of their objectives, ie running a war govt which pays off a lot of their constiuencies in lots of ways - some of them get paid in defense contracts, but Joe 6-Pack gets paid in entertainment, ie, watching the news and imagining that his balls are the size of basketballs because we're running around Iraq blowing holes in the sand.    Never mind that we're actually getting in our own way.

God help us if the Chinese ever get it together.   There is one testosterone-maxed country, because they've been aborting little girls for a couple generations, and if I was a Chink, I would be PISSED in a way that only long term horns can cause.

Actually I am a chink, but I am an ABC, and the Chinese are getting their act together. If we didn't get there first you can bet your dunb, white ass that the "chinks" would have been there, not under the guise of bringing democracy and limiting collateral damage. They would be unapologetic in looking out for their national interests.

Greenspan was absolutely correct in his assessment that Saddam had to go. All you whiny libs complain about $3.00 gas. If Saddam was allowed to stay in power $120 to $200 oil was a virtual certainty. Of course the left would blame the greedy oil companies, despite the fact that the USA has no influence on oil prices except as the world's largest consumer.

120-200, that's a pretty big range.  A virtunal certainty, eh?

couldn't tie your fucking shoelaces if yer momma did it for ya.

Lies are one thing if ya guess right, but looks ta me like I toldja so, this was gonna be a massive clusterfuck.   Pretty sad state of affairs when a simple country lawyer can guess righter than the fuckin president.

Oh lemme guess:  it's tha whiny liberals fault, acoz they have crystal balls - unfair advantage!!

Seems ta me I remember something about blowjobs and liars.  Good thing Dubya didn't get no blowjobs.

Let me ask you. What the fuck does your "response" have to do with my post?

Get back on your meds and stay on topic. Your incoherent rants are getting boring.

I will spell it out:   why support a President who not only lies thru his teeth, but also fucks up everything he touches?!  I mean, this idiot can't even keep his lies straight.

Is it because he's convinced you that "whiny libs" are "socialists"?   How could say, a Sharpton/Manson ticket fuck things up worse than Bush/Cheney have?

How can you be so fucking dumb?  I'm really interested, as a scientific inquiry.  

What the fuck does that have to do with what I had to say.
Are you really that fucking dense?

I give - there's no sense in talking to rocks.

I still think it is only a matter of time until we see $120 oil, even if peace broke out in the middle east. Until and unless we find something to replace fossil fuels, the worldwide demand will just keep growing and growing. If the Chinese and/or the Indians ever start consuming energy at a similar rate as the US, consumption will exceed 100 million BOPD. Even if every oil producing country in the world ramped up to full production they could barely produce 90 million BOPD. Somethings got to give.

I will let you have this reat of this conversatin with yourself. Your answer for everything, just like most libs is "George Bush is an idiot" I never once mentioned Bush or his administration.My conversation was about Greenspan and removing Saddam. I fyou'd like to talk about that then fine. If not then start another thread.

Speaking of rocks ...Please put the crack pipe down, at least while you're talking to me.

JackO is a little slow. His thought process is pre-programmed to repeat the same nonsense over and over and over. It's the usual, "if i say it often enough, it must be true" line of bullshit.

He doesn't like the historical record of virtually every intelligence agency across the world believing there were WMD's. He doesn't like the fact that Clinton called for "regime change" in 1998 and that became official US policy thereafter. So rather than argue on the merits, the Jack0's of the world figure it's easier to change the facts and call people liars and say our President "lies thru his teeth".

Jack0 is confused by the war his generation lost- the "GIVE PEACE A CHANCE" crowd that cost the lives of so many people after we shamelessly abandoned them, leaving the vietnamese to be slaughtered by the 100's of thousands by their captors. Now, Jack0 wants to do it all over again in IRAQ. Honor, responsibility for our country's actions, faithfulness to our commitments-- these are concepts the Jack0's of the world make a mockery of.

Yea, Jack0 is a little slow.

it's only 'whiny liberals' who point out that Saddam "having to go" has turned out to be a clusterfuck far worse than Saddam staying?!  "saddam has to go" - for whatever reason - is precisely what GWB fucked us  with, as if you don't know.

Now, is that because the situation was obviously impossible, or was it because of your boy's extraordinary native talent at fucking things up?!

It never occurs to you that as far as Greenspan is right (and he seems solid as far as he goes), that the GOP getting in the oil business in Iraq is going to be about as profitable as Dubya's Texas oil business - ie, insanely expensive for the world at large, but immensely profitable to the RNC when they get paid off to get the fuck out and stop fucking everything up, like the economies of both countries and the families of god knows how many needless casualties.

Who's smoking crack?!!

the very first question anybody asks is, 'so what are you gonna do?' and if the answer is a cure worse than the disease, you think twice.

Correction:  sane people think twice.  I'm sure you have somebody else's honor to think about.

Of course, your draft-dodging idiot thinks we should have stayed in Vietnam.  We could still be plowing up the countryside - what an opportunity we lost for defense contractors there!!   Instead of pulling out the Vietnamese to Orange county - as we did and needed to after we fucked up their country as much as Uncle Ho did, and now we're doing the same fucking thing to that sandbox in the mideast - we could have killed them all - if the GOP had their way.

Cheney pointed out after Gulf 1 that managing post-war Iraq would be a quagmire.  When asked about that, he said 9/11 changed everything, ie that now we need quagmires.  WTF?!!   When you're in trouble, don't SOLVE the problem, look for MORE trouble instead!!   Well, that's if your PARTY is in trouble, then you gotta get voters to hyperventilate, or you lose.

Don't give me shit about honor, asshole!  - I was in on that, and there's damn little honor in killing people for no point, or killing them in any way.  You'll think HONOR when you see people totally fucked up so some ASSHOLE politician can "save face".

You cannot avoid the history:  GWB either walked us into an impossible situation - my opinion - or, he's a complete incompetent fuckup.   A realistic but probably not decisive possibility.

What SHOULD have happened is for the regional people to be told, this will happen, now you can benefit or you can lose, who is with us?  And then the area split up along more natural boundaries.

And we should not have taken on 2 wars at once - like it takes a rocket scientist to see that.

And we should not be legitimaizing Al Qaeda by declaring war on them - we should be treating them as international criminals, as pirates were; and yes, they could be subject - at least by statute - to military jursidiction, though it might be smarter in the long run to bring in international courts.

And we should be enlisting every other country in this fight, as it is natural, and only a complete fucking idiot leading a bunch of venal ideologues could fuck it up, as GW has.

Now, if a simple country lawyer can see this, what the fuck is the matter with you?!  Smelltesting your ass and got stuck, or what?!

FOAD, REMF.

I don't give a shit about peace.   My job was to make sure we got our money's worth for blood spent.

Getting people killed is not for your entertainment, asshole.   It's not a substitute for your personal lack of balls, or the RNC's lack of balls.    

When people start dying, they deserve competent leadership.   Obviously, they didn't get it.

Let's hear your excuses.

I'm not going to get into Jack, but "virtually every intelligence agency" thought they had WMD's?  First, that isn't quite accurate.  Second, we supplied a lot of that misinformation.

Also, "regime change" is quite a bit different than invade a country without much of a plan, make half-assed references to a virtually non-existent connection to Al-Quaeda as subterfuge for your true motives, which include building an embassy/military presence in Iraq, oil, etc....and we could give a shit about promoting democracy too.

What a strange world we live in that people can have such varying views on the same things.

http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/brent-baker/2007/09/18/abc-trumpets-greenspans-bush-went-war-oil-ignores-his-real-view

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/16/AR2007091601287_pf.html

Newsbusters?  Okay, I won't read any article that appears on that site.  What's next, an op-ed by Bill O'Reilly or Ann Coulter.

I'm not sure even how that helps that much.

He says, "I never heard them basically say"....

A pretty half-hearted defense.

It also sounds like from his interview that the White House made it clear they were instructed not to speak about oil as a motive.

"Well, unfortunately, we can't talk about oil."

Hmmmm, why so unfortunate?

I guess it all boils down to what you originally thought what was meant by the original quote "the prime motive for the war in Iraq was oil."

I'm not at all surprised that when the originator of that quote tells you that you are wrong, that you would ignore him. Belief in the truth, when it doesn't fit the model, is of no use.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20817260/

http://uk.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUKN1728646120070917?pageNumber=1


-- Modified on 9/18/2007 9:36:57 PM

Look at what he actually said though.  He's playing politics.  His point remains the same.

He wrote in his book that the reason was for oil.  Someone like Greenspan doesn't just type away and submit this thing without taking what he writes very seriously.  He's meticulous.

His comments, after the news jumps on that one point are not strongly worded.  His follow up answers are not that strongly worded, and the implications could be read either way I suppose.  Which, of course, is going to be slanted a bit by your politics.

His responses just aren't strong enough to make me think he erred in his book.  It seems like a pretty tepid response, and not an outright denial.

what he said was, it was sad that it is so politically difficult to say it is about oil.

then he illustrated what he meant by discussing the straits of hormuz and $120/oil.

his point is that going to war over the worlds supply of oil is not the same thing as going to war over the worlds supply of french wine

his comments were that it is sad people (like perhaps you) would politicize it more than it deserved...

1) Greenspan spent his entire FED career wording things loosely, dodgey and not very strongly. It's his style.

2) He didn't exactly write the whole book. He used a ghost writer. He reveiwed the first and the last drafts.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article695984.ece

Well, perhaps it's from a different source, but the article linked seems to be saying the ghost writers were used to add pace to the book.  I think the final comment in your post about only reviewing the "first" and "last" drafts is probably a bit misleading for anyone that doesn't link to the article provided.

I doubt his ghostwriters would add such a contentious line of thought to his book without him noticing.