Greenspan Re-writes the History of the Invasion of Iraq

“That’s silly,” former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld answered a member of the American media at a news conference at the Pentagon before the war, at the beginning of 2003. The reporter had asked Rumsfeld if the reason for the war against Iraq was US control over oil.

However, it now appears that the issue wasn’t that silly, as Rumsfeld claimed at the time. The source for this information is one of the most important US officials, who enjoys international credibility, namely Alan Greenspan, the former head of the US Federal Reserve. In his memoirs, Greenspan said that “oil was one of the main reasons for waging war against Iraq.”
The book, entitled “Age of Turbulence”, was published last week, it sees Greenspan say that “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil, and therefore the expectations about supply and demand for oil didn’t take into consideration the turbulent state of the Middle East, ignoring the talk about the 800-pound gorilla in the room, which would obstruct the path of the world economy.”

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In the end, the most important question here remains a mystery, like many things related to Iraq these days. If the principal reason for the war was the control of oil, did this require the destruction of Iraq and the displacement of 4 million Iraqis, whether inside or outside the country? It is difficult to understand that Washington, after four years of occupation, is negotiating with Tehran about the future of security in Iraq; how is this in line with the goals of the war, whatever they were?

If oil was the principal reason behind the war, why was the Iraqi oil industry allowed to be sabotaged, and why couldn’t it receive serious protection? Sabotage attacks against oil institutions and employees and workers in the sector stood at an average of one attack a day during 2005 and 2006. The last one was the kidnapping of the deputy oil minister, Abdel-Jabbar al-Wakka’ and four director generals of oil from the headquarters of the Iraqi Oil Marketing Institution in mid-August, by about 100 armed men wearing police uniforms and using police weapons, driving cars used by the Iraqi police.

Dar Al Hayat