Alan Greenspan Clarifies His Comments On War For Oil
But something tells me this clarification isn’t going to get near the attention the original misleading reports about his “war for oil” comments got.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Clarifying a controversial comment in his new memoir, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said he told the White House before the Iraq war that removing Saddam Hussein was “essential” to secure world oil supplies, according to an interview published on Monday.
Greenspan, who wrote in his memoir that “the Iraq War is largely about oil,” said in a Washington Post interview that while securing global oil supplies was “not the administration’s motive,” he had presented the White House before the 2003 invasion with the case for why removing the then-Iraqi leader was important for the global economy.
“I was not saying that that’s the administration’s motive,” Greenspan said in the interview conducted on Saturday. “I’m just saying that if somebody asked me, ‘Are we fortunate in taking out Saddam?’ I would say it was essential.”
So, in summary, “war for oil” was Greenspan’s justification, not the Bush administration’s.
I won’t hold my breath waiting for a correction/retraction from the reporters who broke this story by mischaracterizing Greenspan’s statements.
But as I mentioned when this story first broke, would it matter if part of the justification for war in the middle east was securing our oil supply? We’re in the middle east to stabilize the region. We want to stabilize the region because a) Islamic terrorism has its roots there and b) we’re dependent on the oil. We are stabilizing the region by opposing tyrannical and fundamentalist groups that would oppress the people and promote instability.
What’s so wrong with that?
Update: Apparently the folks at AFP didn’t get the memo about Greenspan’s clarification this morning. Either that or they don’t care.
