Monday, September 17, 2007


BUSH OFFICIAL Alan Greenspan

admits Iraq War is for OIL !



Greenspan: So, what is the Iraq war all about after all?
It's official - well, sort of.
The insistent protestations and propagandizing of the Cheney-Bush White House notwithstanding, the Iraq war really was or is about oil after all, not about ridding the world of a dictator who supposedly threatened his neighbors, the United Kingdom and the U.S. with a stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, which were never found.

AP
Former U.S. Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan served in that influential role from 1987 to 2006
Instead, notes former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan, who served in that influential role from 1987 to 2006: "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil." The Federal Reserve Board chairman oversees the United States' Federal Reserve Bank system; Greenspan, who was appointed to his powerful post by Ronald Reagan, went on to serve under several presidents. A self-described "libertarian Republican," he makes his observation - and others that are sure to upset the Bush gang - in his much-anticipated memoirs, The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World. The book is being published today in the U.S. (In Britain, the Daily Telegraph will begin serialzing excerpts from it tomorrow.) (Daily Telegraph; see also Radio Canada, French-language service)
In the new volume, which weighs in at more than 500 pages, Greenspan also criticizes the current Bush White House's handling of foreign policy and today's variety of Republicans for having spectacularly lost the 2006 congressional midterm elections. He notes that Bush's economic policies have been irresponsible and costly; it's a fact that, contrary to his expressed, Reaganesque, small-government philosophy (which always sounds good at campaign time to conservatives), Bush actually has expanded the federal government and driven it into debt like never before. (Daily Telegraph; see also Die Welt and Basler Zeitung)
In his book, Greenspan notes of the current Bush government that, "little value" has been "placed on rigorous economic policy debate or the weighing of long-term consequences." Instead, the respected economist observes, "Much to my disappointment, economic policy-making in the Bush administration remained firmly in the hands of White House staff." A British news service points out: "Greenspan's long association with Republican administrations and his reputation for independence add clout to his criticism." (ITN)

Reuters
U.S. military personnel sit aboard a boat as they patrol Iraq's oil-producing area in an undated file photo
Echoing Greenspan's remarks, a news item in Australia's the Age notes that it has "been blindingly obvious to everyone except [Australian] Prime Minister John Howard and some of his senior ministers that oil has a lot to do with the war in Iraq....Howard has vigorously denied that that was the case, but now no less an authority than former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan says that is what the war is mainly about." Howard has been a staunch supporter to Bush's Iraq war. In July, Australia's defense minister, Brendan Nelson, "confirmed that Iraq and the entire Middle East was an important supplier of energy, oil in particular," and emphasized that "Australians and all of us need to think well what would happen if there were a premature withdrawal from Iraq." Later the same day, in radio interviews, "Howard stressed [that] the war had nothing to do with oil." (Age)
Anticipating the damage Greenspan's published remarks could do to its reputation, such as it is, the Bush gang has begun one of its usual public-relations counter-offensives. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates was sent out to tell the media, commenting on Bush's war: "I have a lot of respect for...Greenspan...but I think that it's really about stability in the [Persian] Gulf. It's about rogue regimes trying to develop weapons of mass destruction. It's about aggressive dictators." (Daily Telegraph)