News from the Front: Wolfowitz: Iraq "swims on a sea of oil"

CHICAGO (NFTF.org) -- U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, has continued to explain the Bush administration's reasons for the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Earlier, the Defense Secretary admitted to the U.S. magazine Vanity Fair that weapons of mass destruction were not the main reason for the U.S.-led attack on Iraq.

According to Wolfowitz, the purpose of emphasizing weapons of mass destruction as a reason to attack Iraq was because it was "the one reason everyone could agree on." Wolfowitz also stated that the decision to highlight Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was done largely for "bureaucratic reasons."

But now Wolfowitz has stated that one of the main reasons for the war was because Iraq "swims on a sea of oil." Wolfowitz made the statements while recently addressing delegates at an Asian security summit in Singapore.

According to Britain's The Guardian, "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 Defense Secretary's latest comments will most likely strip away more of the Bush administration's fast deteriorating credibility.

Printed on Wednesday, June 04, 2003 @ 18:57:08 CDT ( )

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unfortunatley i dont have a direct link - does anyone else?

if this is accurate, it pretty much buries the rpo-war camp. The mindblowing thing however is that the population of the US, the warmongering country, has already forgotten the iraq war, after all thats yesterdays news - or at least wolfowitz beleives so obviously.

yet even after he is laying the truth on the carpet, other countries of the world and anti-war campaigners are still being criticised and sanctioned for their lack of support for this murder, and international outrage.

i will be interested to read the commetns of the prowar group - do you think this man is delusional? that he has misunderstood the reasons for going to war?

or will you agree that you were wrong?

(let me guess - you will criticise the validity of this article instead)

I searched for it on google, the link to such an article is there, but it seemed to have expired so it's only available to paying subscribers. We'll definitely hear more on this.

A Defense Department link to the entire text of the interview.


http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/200...secdef0223.html

QUOTE

Q: Was that one of the arguments that was raised early on by you and others that Iraq actually does connect, not to connect the dots too much, but the relationship between Saudi Arabia, our troops being there, and bin Laden's rage about that, which he's built on so many years, also connects the World Trade Center attacks, that there's a logic of motive or something like that? Or does that read too much into -- Wolfowitz: No, I think it happens to be correct. The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason, but -- hold on one second -- (Pause) Kellems: Sam there may be some value in clarity on the point that it may take years to get post-Saddam Iraq right. It can be easily misconstrued, especially when it comes to -- Wolfowitz: -- there have always been three fundamental concerns. One is weapons of mass destruction, the second is support for terrorism, the third is the criminal treatment of the Iraqi people. Actually I guess you could say there's a fourth overriding one which is the connection between the first two. Sorry, hold on again. Kellems: By the way, it's probably the longest uninterrupted phone conversation I've witnessed, so -- Q: This is extraordinary. Kellems: You had good timing. Q: I'm really grateful. Wolfowitz: To wrap it up. The third one by itself, as I think I said earlier, is a reason to help the Iraqis but it's not a reason to put American kids' lives at risk, certainly not on the scale we did it. That second issue about links to terrorism is the one about which there's the most disagreement within the bureaucracy, even though I think everyone agrees that we killed 100 or so of an al Qaeda group in northern Iraq in this recent go-around, that we've arrested that al Qaeda guy in Baghdad who was connected to this guy Zarqawi whom Powell spoke about in his UN presentation.

http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/200...secdef0246.html

QUOTE

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.

Damn that context.

so the vanity fair quote stands, as he says that there were three main reasons, and the beurocracy knew it couldnt get the link between iraq and al queda to stick, so they opted for the notion of WMD - where its becoming more and more obvious they lied through their teeth (actually thats been proved many times so far, with that student written 'proof' of iraqi nuclear armament).

and he makes clear that the admin did *not* attack for humanitarian reasons.

so thats pretty clear.


as for the second, it does rather seem taken out of context - but then again not really. After he has already removed the idea the admin went to war for humanitarian reasons, and that the WMD angle was purely because it could unite the admin beaurocracy - then this article starts to make more sense.

the war in iraq happened because iraq had a resource that it could sell - ie the US wanted, that resource was oil. they had no other economic options because of this fact, whereas with NK not having this resource, not forcing the US oil elites hand.

it is true, the journos should have quoted proper - but for sure they got the gist, otherwise by now wolfowitz would be suing them.

QUOTE

One is weapons of mass destruction, the second is support for terrorism, the third is the criminal treatment of the Iraqi people. Actually I guess you could say there's a fourth overriding one which is the connection between the first two.

Seems pretty clear but I have no doubt the WMD was the only close to legal reason they could put forth. The real reason isn't on the list.

http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/05/1615267.php
http://www.yellowtimes.org/print.php?sid=1385
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2003/05/265698.shtml
http://www.melbourne.indymedia.org/news/20...03/05/48267.php

Eh, basicly, noone cares except those who opposed the war in the first place, unfortunately.

This post has been edited by Gengari: Jun 6 2003, 09:49 AM

The only people that care about the quote are those who believe extremist websites which intentionally took the quote out of context.

I would argue semantics about your stupid comment, notsosuperdude JR, but I've done it, and been ignored by the idiot you are, so many times, it's just rhetoric.

This post has been edited by Gengari: Jun 6 2003, 09:54 PM

*sigh*

QUOTE

the war in iraq happened because iraq had a resource that it could sell - ie the US wanted, that resource was oil. they had no other economic options because of this fact, whereas with NK not having this resource, not forcing the US oil elites hand.

Are you being deliberately ignorant of the english language, in addition to supporting a fake quote? With North Korea, economic actions can be brought to bear to help reach a settlement with regards to their saber-rattling. With the oil in Iraq, and the tacit support for smuggling from Russia, France, and other nations, economic actions were not an option, leaving only the military attack as a possibility for dealing with Hussein. Are you forgetting that Hussein's regime admitted that they had WMD, and even Hans Blix admits that there's a lot that is unaccounted for?

I honestly don't know which is worse, the bloodthirsty morons who blindly support Bush and say that any questions about the war are treasonous; or the naive morons who misquote and demonize the U.S. to make Saddam Hussein look like the victim and say that "everything will be ok if it weren't for the evil United States."

i only know 1 thing.


2 months ago the price of oil in my area was 99 cents per litre.

today i filled up for 79 cents a litre. If iraq is the cause of me saving so much cash i am not going to complaign. i pumped 30 litres of unleaded petrol, 20 cents saved per litre means i saved 6 dollars per week. Which is quite alot.

LOL you pay through the NOSE!

You 30l x $0.79 = $23.7 AUD

Me (1gal x $1.42) x 7.9(gal to l) = $11.25 USD = $16.89 AUD

In my pocket $6.81 AUD or $4.54 USD...You pay $1.99 USD per gallon!

QWOT: with well over 1 million deaths attributed by the UN to the sanctions placed on iraq since GW1, i suspect that that is not the correct interpretation.

economic sanctions were there - and they hurt real bad, sadam had little munitions beyond light arms, and virtually every expert that was not preempted by the bush admin agreed they had no chance of WMD creation.

the 'ecomonic' aspect of it was the key point, as i said - it was purely (or mainly) about oil, as everyone not who has studied even vaguely history knew straightaway.

please remember just how many of bushes cabinet come from working in the oil/energy business.

Errrrm............... Im not sure what the conversions are, but i fervently hope that your calculations are wrong.

79c per litre happens to be extremely cheap...... at least in perth :unsure:
If a station was selling at 79c per litre, it would certainly be among the cheapest stations you could go to. To have someone paying 1/8 of us???

I DEMAND JUSTICE!

From Vanity Fair:

QUOTE

"Two things became clear. One, he didn't know very much. The other was he had the confidence to ask questions that revealed he didn't know very much... you got the sense that if he believed something he'd pursue it tenaciously." -Richard Perle referring to King George II "Wolfowitz, too, would soon be telling Washington acquaintances that Bush... cut through the murk, wanted to be told what needed doing and how it should be done." "In January 1998, Kristol generated an open letter to Clinton -- signed as well by Perle, Wolfowitz, and five others who now hold important positions in the Bush administration -- declaring that "containment" of Iraq had failed and the only solution was "removing Saddam's regime." That 1998 letter, one of a constant stream of neocon recommendations churned out by the Project for a New American Century, predates the more widely-noted 2000 PNAC white paper Rebuilding America's Defenses, which has become the Bush administration's roadmap in the post-9/11 world."

So, Bush really IS a clueless tool, and WMD's WERE a manufatured pretext to fraudulently garner public and legislative compliance AND 9/11 was related to Iraq only insomuch as it could be spun into an excuse to get the caissons rolling.

Gosh, my faith in the administration is shattered, shattered I say!

As my father said regarding wolfowitz...

"True or not, I know at least one thing: that man, if that is really what he said, is fired."

Yes, there is something wrong: left and right do not determine idiocy, liberal and conservative do not determine idiocy.

idiocy is an independant factor.

So the independents are idiots?

Mmmmm...

alot of them yes, but no more so than the other poliitcal directions :P

Bull, I cannot buy the oil argument... It just doesn't make any sense... I'll buy the global constabulary argument... But the oil argument is not accepted by anyone who has a clue about the situation...

QUOTE

The UN has zero credibility when it comes to discussing poverty in Iraq. Don't forget, it was the UN that ran the "Food for Oil" program.

and two of the directors resigned, both long term careerists in the UN, one a deputy director of the whole UN. They both left for the same reason - they said that they had not joined the UN to become part of an organised genocide, they felt the 'oil for food' program went against every precept of the UN charter.

QUOTE

A lot of money went into that program, where did it go?

all costs of the program were taken from the budget of the oil for food program - the iraqis paid every cent, including the wages of the officials who were preventing the supplies reaching iraq.

may i suggest you get hold of pilgers "iraq" documentary, where he interviews these directors, and shows actual documents about what was allowed to go to iraq, and what was prevented.

QUOTE

Sounds more like the UN is trying to deflect criticism from the mismanagement and corruption in that program rather than factually reporting the effect of the sanctions.

the managers of the program were the ones who resigned because they were prevented from doing their jobs properly - by the veto power that britain and the US held.

i most strongly suggest watching that documentary - it is very powerful and well researched, even if you dont agree with all of its claims. (we got a copy from charlton TV - if you are at college/school, you can get copies for free, otherwise i'm not sure how :( )

QUOTE

I'm surprised that you'd discount virtually everything from the U.S. government, but swallow whole any proclamations from the equally large CYA burecracy at the UN.

i am suspicious of *all* beaurocratic sources - still, some have more credibility than others, especially when it fits with other behaviour.

QUOTE

You completely missed my point. Yes, it is very likely that the Bush Administration was primarily concerned about oil... HOWEVER Your moronic ranting about Wolfowitz and saying "See that?? See that??? He ADMITTED IT!!!!" about an incorrect out-of-context quote just clouds the issue further and destroys your credibility.

it is not quoting it out of context - it is simply having different opinions of the unspoken paradigm behind the words.

i'm sure you can see why i am interpreting it the way i am, becuase of what i beleive his underlying motives to be, just as i can see why you are choosing your interpretation.

just flipping through this, and the formatting seems wierd, even after i've refreshed a couple of times, so i'd thought i'd top it to see if it clears - it looks like comments of gengari and MWO weren't being shown.

anyway, its as topical as the ongoing US occupation.

Why are you resurrecting a worthless thread about an article that (I can only assume intentionally) quoted out of context in a bizarre manner to support a partisan political agenda?