The Guardian Pulls a "Dowd" - Falsely Attributes War for Oil Claim to Wolfowitz w/ Misquote

6 June 2003

[Stultis]

Yeah, I figured you were just being ventagious. I'm in full agreement and am also constantly peeviated about this practice.

[Michael81Dus]

Since I learned that you started a hate campaign against my person, I will not comment your posts directed against me. But I will take my right to inform other with all given ways about your hate campaign.

[Michael81Dus]

I read the article of "Die Welt", and the article of the Guardian. I have no reason to distrust "Die Welt" - it is a more right-wing newspaper and my favourite national paper. Where is a proof that Wolfowitz didn´t say that?

[hellinahandcart]

In the transcript of what he did say. That's where.

[Rodney King]

Amen. I just can't figure out why there is this new excerpting trend.

[Michael81Dus]

And where can I find it?

[Stultis]

Try actually reading message #1 in this thread. DUH!

[tictoc]

I told you to stop sending me Freepmail.
Now be a good fellow and stop invading my private mail.

[hellinahandcart]

The links to the speech and Q&A with Wolfowitz are up in Stultis' article.

By the way, the Guardian story misquoting Wolfowitz has now disappeared from their website. What's your take on that?

[Stultis]

Utne Reader is now repeating the Guardian Story

Leading White House Hawk Admits U.S. Invaded Iraq for its Oil

June 2003
By Craig Cox,
Utne.com

One of the Bush administration’s leading foreign policy architects has admitted that the U.S. invaded Iraq for its oil.

Speaking to delegates at an Asian security summit in Singapore last weekend, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said the United States chose military action over diplomacy in Iraq because the country was “swimming” in oil, reports George Wright in the Guardian.

The comment came in response to a question about why the Bush administration has treated North Korea, a known nuclear power, so much differently than Iraq, which has no proven nuclear capability. “Let’s look at it simply,” Wolfowitz said. “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.”

Wolfowitz’s admission comes at a time when the White House and the British government are both under extreme pressure to justify their invasion of Iraq. Committees in the British Parliament and in the U.S. Congress are pressing for inquiries about alleged manipulation of intelligence surrounding Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction.

It isn’t the first time Wolfowitz has alluded to government deception around the Iraq invasion. Last month in a Vanity Fair interview, he described how the Bush administration had decided to use Saddam Hussein’s alleged possession of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons as a public motive for the invasion.

My email to the UR reporter:

Your story is wrong. Why would you put quotes around comments translated from English to German and back, when you could get the original transcript from the DOD? You should give up reporting for blogging if you aren't willing to do the leg work.

Here is the email I sent to The Guardian reporter...

[Michael81Dus]

For the public:

This is what I wrote to Tictoc

"...Don´t think you have the right to choose who may post on FR and who has not. You have not such a right. Jim Robinson has, and others Moderators. Bring a proof that I have violated the rules on FR and I´ll never visit that site. But as long you can´t bring that proof, don´t tell me that I was not a conservative or that I should stop posting comments! Learn now and forever, that others have the right of expression their opinion as well as you have!"

[hellinahandcart]

Amen. I just can't figure out why there is this new excerpting trend.

Then help me. Adopt my tagline. If enough people do this, we will become a righteous army of correction, and this scourge will end!

[Michael81Dus]

Ok, it wasn´t so easy, the important sentence of Wolfowitz wasn´t in red.

So he basically said that the US couldn´t do anything else than to attack Iraq, because the oil was the factor why Iraq had enough money to buy more materials for WMD? We had the sanctions. I can´t see what he meant with the oil. Iraq is rich of oil, ok. But Iraq was poor because of the sanctions (as we saw when the hungry Iraqi soldiers surrendered). Does he think that he can prevent N Korea from building MORE NUKES by economic sanctions?

India and Pakistan are both poor, too. Though, they have developed nukes... I don´t see a sense in his words.

However, the misquotation is evident.

[tictoc]

LOL. I have formed my opinion of you and will express it as often as I please.

[Stultis]

The Guardian lie has also spread to Pacifica Radio (big surprise) on a show last night called "Flashpoints" by some "Dennis Bernstein". Apparently they get obessesive complusive lefties to make written notes of the shows and post them on the website. (Can you imagine!)

http://www.pacifica.org/programs/flashpoints/flashpoints_030604.html

8:17:18 PM PST
Dennis: about Bush's so-called *Roadmap to Peace*.. now w Ali Abunemah of Electronic Intifada.. Sharon said he would dismantle all 'unauthorized settlements'.. Ali: a conjuring trick.. fewer than a dozen settlements.. he has given up nothing.. like removing a goat from a crowded corral.. [BLAH, BLAH, BLAH]... dire situation in Afghanistan.. hard to say things are better now than under the Taliban.. [B*TCH, PI$$, MOAN]... on the Guardian website.. Wolfowitz in Singapore said the reason for the war was oil.. they have just disbanded the Iraqi army, but before the war they said they would keep it.. the US Army left holding the bag.. generating animosity between Rumsfeld and the army.. Baghdad is a city of 5 million people, had 30,000 police before the war.. now 2,000 soldiers trying to maintain public order.. becoming heavy handed and violent.. Dennis: more anger coming on the Arab street?.. Ali: utter disgust among Arabs.. [etc]

[EggsAckley]

Right on, helli! I missed this one. My thought is that there is an element of laziness, plus the fact that there are a lot of refugees from Lucianne.com, where they MUST excerpt EVERYTHING. The practice of excerpting generally turns the story into nothing but a fluffy headline, and VERY often the link is obsolete. I still say that JimRob should post the list of taboo sites right at the top of the page, so it's easy to find the list. I know that you and others have posted it, but that still makes me go searching for it when I need it. Keep up the good fight!

S.U.E.

[hellinahandcart]

I don't think I want to get involved in a private argument, and I don't think you've done anything necessarily ban-worthy, Michael-- but you should know, if someone asks you to stop mailing them privately, and you don't stop, that could definitely be considered an abuse of the forum.

As to your letter-- of course everyone has the right to express their opinions. That doesn't make the opinion itself worth anything, though, and it doesn't make it immune from criticism. That's nothing more than the rest of us expressing our opinion of your opinion. So you can't complain.

[Steve_Seattle]

"the Guardian pulls a 'Dowd'"

Dowd is bad, but not as bad as Molly Ivins when it comes to pulling quotes out of their context. To me, she is completely unethical and I wish I had kept a file of examples of her deliberate misrepresentations.

[Michael81Dus]

So you - full of emotions of your Palestine-Israel-conflict - spread this conflict to every other topic and think you can judge people on their opinion on that? Great character, tictoc!

[Stultis]

Iraq was poor because of the sanctions

Correction. Iraqis (who weren't assisting or favored by the regime) were poor because of the sanctions. Saddam was selling their food and medicine on the black market, selling oil clandestinely outside of the U.N. program, taking an average 5% kickback on all oil for food contracts, etc, etc, etc.