Posted on 09/15/2007 4:21:02 PM PDT by freespirited
AMERICAs 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 Bushs 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 Saddams support for terrorism
Did he say that like it’s a bad thing? Not that that was the only reason. I would like everyone willing to live without oil, to begin doing it now. So the rest of us can live comfortably on what we produce domestically. GO!
Oil was a factor in the war but not in the way that Greenspan implies. With the sanctions lifted, SH would have had a large revenue stream to pursue terrorism and weapons. SH would have been happy to sell oil to finance his covert war against us. Oil is obviously a vital commodity. But SH wanted to sell oil to the highest bidder. He would not have withheld oil except in a time of war or as part of OPEC supply manipulation.
His lovely (gag) wife, andrea, must have been a co-author.
He is married to ugly MSDNC lib Andrea Mitchell. It is impossible for him to do anything but criticize Republicans. He is a “Republican” in the same way David Gergen and William Cohen are.
1 - Well Greenspan is not as smart as he is credited with then. Even a child could see we haven’t gained much oil from the war in Iraq. Where is this oil we supposedly stole?
2- Even if it was about oil which it is not - so what? Why is that a bad thing anyway? If a country or group of countries threatened to shut off the flow of oil any American President including dems would go to war to keep the country and world from depression.
Yes, the oil factor was and is indirect as far as the USA is concerned. We have better suppliers such as Venezuela and Mexico, both stable and dependable as the Red Sox.
do you suppose she was the co-author? the exerpts that have been published sound exactly like her words.
BINGO!
By the way, the usual Commie mirage of a U.S. "war for oil" (they used that line about Vietnam, too) is a claim that we intend to gain an oil supply by simply seizing another country's oil fields and keeping them for ourselves. Okay, considering who controls most of the oil, I might consider it. But I don't write the policies here.
The reality is that a "war for oil" in this case is to ensure that the lion's share of known oil reserves is available for sale in the world marketrather than being seized or destroyed by ideological kooks like Saddam or al Qaeda. Anyone who thinks that kind of "war for oil" is somehow bad is not an adult.
Gosh, d'ya think the MSM outlets will spend a few weeks claiming Greenspan said the President wanted to steal Iraq's oil fields and keep them?
Not that I think Greenspan was likely consulted about war aims.
That means it was "largely" about Saddam's potential aggression on regional oil supplies, not "our" aggression to capture or control oil.
The carefully spoken Greenspan is making misleading statements to sell a book..., and Time is playing right along to prop up Democrats.
If the war in Iraq as really all about oil, then why don’t we have all of it in the whole world right now?
Why are we wasting so much time on Iraqi Civilian’s needs, when we should be setting up a perimiter around all of Iraq’s oil assests, and shooting anyone who comes near them.
Why did we not tell Kuwait to pick a governor, and we would add a star? Same with Saudi Arabia....we had enough troops in thier country to take it over several times.
One of our biggest oil importers is Canada. Why don’t we just take over Canuckistan, dig up Quebec to ship home to France, and take all of thier oil too?? Cancuckistan would make an excellent place to launch our conquest of Russia next, since they are now one of the biggest oil producers in the World.
Mr. Andrea Mitchell is just wrong on this one...
Alan, if you can’t STFU then please die...
Precisely! Would it be preferable that the oil resources of Iraq, Saudi Arabia, et cetera, be controlled by Islamofascistic terrorists? What an exquisitely powerful weapon of extortion that would be.
Greenspan, 81, is understood to believe that Saddam Hussein posed a threat to the security of oil supplies in the Middle East.
Anybody with half a brain knows the global Oil supplies is the life blood of the US economy and PART of going to war with Saddam was to keep those supplies from being used against us.
Pretend for a moment, we didn't invade and now Saddam had nukes.
Saudi Arabia and all the Persian gulf oil kingdoms would be at his mercy. Then that would be the reason to go to war.
The word preemptive comes to mind
Considering how the socialists have been whining about the rising costs of oil, that should be a good thing then, shouldn't it?
You’ve been reading too much of Mearsheimer’s Israel lobby nonsense. Israel attacked Saddam Hussein’s nuclear facilities 20 years ago, without even notifying the US. They do whatever they want, they have an extremly powerful military. Saddam may have been funding bombers, but so is every other Arab country in the world. By the way, Israel knew most of the funding for Hamas and Hizbolla is from Iran, not Iraq.
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39051
Also, why do we need Iraq’s oil? Bush basically french kisses King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia when he visits. If our oil supply was in danger, we should have started drilling in ANWR.
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