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

6 June 2003

[Stultis]

Excuse the vanity. All the relevant information is in the following thread, but buried a hundred odd messages down. I wanted to post something with what you need to know right up top, without having to wait for the editorials to come out tomorrow.

Wolfowitz: Iraq war was about oil (RUH ROH!!) [The Guardian, 6/4/03]

Oil was the main reason for military action against Iraq, a leading White House hawk has claimed [...]. Paul Wolfowitz - who has already undermined Tony Blair's position over weapons of mass destruction (WMD) by describing them as a "bureaucratic" excuse for war - has now gone further by claiming the real motive was that Iraq is "swimming" in oil.

The latest comments were made by Mr Wolfowitz in an address to delegates at an Asian security summit in Singapore at the weekend, and reported today by German newspapers Der Tagesspiegel and Die Welt.

Asked why a nuclear power such as North Korea was being treated differently from Iraq, where hardly any weapons of mass destruction had been found, the deputy defence minister said: "Let's look at it simply. 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."

[The Guardian then procedes with pontification based entirely on this misrepresentation.]

So much for the Guardian. Now compare that with what Wolfowitz actually said (the except is from the Q&A):

     Q:  What I meant is that essentially North Korea is being taken more seriously because it has become a nuclear power by its own admission, whether or not that's true, and that the lesson that people will have is that in the case of Iraq it became imperative to confront Iraq militarily because it had banned weapons systems and posed a danger to the region.  In the case of North Korea, which has nuclear weapons as well as other banned weapons of mass destruction, apparently it is imperative not to confront, to persuade and to essentially maintain a regime that is just as appalling as the Iraqi regime in place, for the sake of the stability of the region.  To other countries of the world this is a very mixed message to be sending out.

     Wolfowitz:  The concern about implosion is not primarily at all a matter of the weapons that North Korea has, but a fear particularly by South Korea and also to some extent China of what the larger implications are for them of having 20 million people on their borders in a state of potential collapse and anarchy.  It's is also a question of whether, if one wants to persuade the regime to change, whether you have to find -- and I think you do -- some kind of outcome that is acceptable to them.  But that outcome has to be acceptable to us, and it has to include meeting our non-proliferation goals.

     Look, the primarily difference -- to put it a little too simply -- between North Korea and Iraq is that we had virtually no economic options with Iraq because the country floats on a sea of oil.  In the case of North Korea, the country is teetering on the edge of economic collapse and that I believe is a major point of leverage whereas the military picture with North Korea is very different from that with Iraq.  The problems in both cases have some similarities but the solutions have got to be tailored to the circumstances which are very different.

Deputy Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz Remarks at the IISS Asian Security Conference (5/31/03)

Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz Q&A following IISS Asia Security Conference

More Wolfowitz Transcripts

Once again, side by side:

Guardian: "Let's look at it simply. 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."

Transcript: "Look, the primarily difference -- to put it a little too simply -- between North Korea and Iraq is that we had virtually no economic options with Iraq because the country floats on a sea of oil."

Of course this goes beyond the simple misquote. That might (if one was extremely charitable) be excused as a problem of translating from English to German and back. (The Guardian did publish before the DOD transcript of the Q&A portion of Wolfowitz' talk was posted.)

The real problem is extreme, blatant and willful (or shockingly ignorant) mischaracterization. The Guardian, in their lead sentence -- indeed in the first clause of the first sentence -- paraphrased Wolfowitz as having "claimed" that, "Oil was the main reason for military action against Iraq". As you can certainly read for yourself, Wolfowitz claimed nothing of the kind. Not on any reading. Not in any language. Wolfowitz was merely noting that North Korea is on the verge of economic collapse, that this would present a large and possibly intolerable problem for South Korea if the regime were to suddenly implode, and that the same problem did not apply to Iraq since it had plenty of hard currency producing oil.

Furthermore, the following transcript should have been available to The Guardian, wherein Wolfowitz explicitly and forcefully repudiates the position they attribute to him:

Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz Media Availability at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo (6/3/03)

     Q:  I'm Satoru Suzuki with TV-Asahi of Japan.  Mr. Secretary, eleven weeks have passed since the coalition forces moved into Iraq.  Yet you've found no weapons of mass destruction in that country -- no convincing evidence yet.  Given that, are you still convinced that you'll be able to find such weapons eventually and, in the absence of such weapons, how can you still justify the war, and what would you say to those critics in Japan and the rest of the world who've been saying that the war was mainly about oil? 

     Wolfowitz:  Well, let me start with the last part.  The notion that the war was ever about oil is a complete piece of nonsense.  If the United States had been interested in Iraq's oil, it would have been very simple 12 years ago or any time in the last 12 years to simply do a deal with Saddam Hussein.  We probably could have had any kind of preferred customer status we wanted if we'd been simply willing to drop our real concerns.  Our real concerns focused on the threat posed by that country -- not only its weapons of mass destruction, but also its support for terrorism and, most importantly, the link between those two things.  You said it's eleven weeks since our troops first crossed the Kuwaiti border, and coalition troops first entered Iraq, as though eleven weeks were a long time.  Eleven weeks is a very short time.  In fact, unfortunately, significant elements of the old regime are still out there shooting at Americans, killing Americans, threatening Iraqis.  It is not yet a secure situation and I believe that probably influences to some extent the willingness of Iraqis to speak freely to us.

     We -- as the whole world knows -- have in fact found some significant evidence to confirm exactly what Secretary Powell said when he spoke to the United Nations about the development of mobile biological weapons production facilities that would seem to confirm fairly precisely the information we received from several defectors, one in particular who described the program in some detail.  But I wouldn't suggest we've gotten to the bottom of the whole story yet.  We said, when Resolution 1441 was being adopted, that the most important thing was to have free and unintimidated access to Iraqis who know where these things are.  Simply going and searching door to door in a country the size of the state of California is not the way you would find things.  You would find things when people start to give you information -- we're still in an early stage of that process and there is no question we will get to the bottom of what's there. 

     But there should be no doubt whatsoever this was a war undertaken because our President and the Prime Minister of England and the other countries that joined with us believe -- and I think they believe correctly -- that this regime was a threat to our security and a threat that we could no longer live with.  It is also the case that, beyond a shadow of any doubt whatsoever, this regime was a horrible abuser of its own people and that there is no question the Iraqi people are far better off with that regime gone. 

[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.