Alan Greenspan thinks so...
From the UK Times
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. more
**Update**
Greenspan later clarified his statement in an interview with the WaPo:
Greenspan, who was the country's top voice on monetary policy at the time Bush decided to go to war in Iraq, has refrained from extensive public comment on it until now, but he made the striking comment in a new memoir out today that "the Iraq War is largely about oil." In the interview, he clarified that sentence in his 531-page book, saying that while securing global oil supplies was "not the administration's motive," he had presented the White House with the case for why removing Hussein was important for the global economy.Well its a much more plausible theory than the far left's theory that we were trying to grab all the oil in Iraq. Greenspan is at least a highly reputable source. Even if one disputes the veracity of Greenspan's statement one cannot deny that oil security is of import. However in my opinion if its that important then we should be making a bigger push towards energy independence.Now if we could only take a break from arguing about global warming long enough to actually work together to achieve this goal in a rational manner we'd all be better off.
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