AMERICAÂ’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 BushÂ’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.
Britain and America have always insisted the war had nothing to do with oil. Bush said the aim was to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction and end SaddamÂ’s support for terrorism.
Gee. We could have bought a lot of oil with the money that we planned to spend on that war. Now it's several years later and we have dumped a bunch more money into the war than originally planned and certainly needed to in order to accomplish this alleged 'goal'. If we had wanted to remove Iraq as a threat to stability, we could have gone home after a few weeks because they were essentially gutted.
I didn't like the way he handled the events that led up to the crash in '01. He also recently suggested that bubbles are completely inavoidable, which I find hard to believe. I'll bet I could pop just about any bubble I wanted to if I had his influence. I don't like the rumors that he gins up just to inject instability into the markets, much like this crap. I'd say he may have forgotten to take his meds this day, but it seems he may have stopped taking them long enough to write a book, or he's just lost it completely.