Did the U.S. invade Iraq over oil?

ABSOLUTELY NOT, according to the administration.  At least that is what we’ve heard so far.

Instead, we’ve heard various other purported reasons, such as the following:

  • Because Saddam Hussein has shown contempt for the United Nations and for his deceptions and cruelties.
  • Because Iraq has failed to co-operate with United Nations weapons inspectors and International Atomic Energy Agency.
  • Because Iraq had nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. These regimes could use such weapons for blackmail, terror, and mass murder…
  • Because we need to establish democracy in Iraq.

Now that Americans are becoming ever more aware of the severe oil shortages we will be facing over coming decades, however, now that it’s more politically palatable to say so, I predict the following:

Before his current term is up, Bush will plainly admit that he invaded Iraq to keep oil flowing to the U.S.

He will brag that his invasion had this ultimate goal. I’m on record.

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Erich Vieth

Erich Vieth is an attorney focusing on civil rights (including First Amendment), consumer law litigation and appellate practice. At this website often writes about censorship, corporate news media corruption and cognitive science. He is also a working musician, artist and a writer, having founded Dangerous Intersection in 2006. Erich lives in St. Louis, Missouri with his two daughters.

This Post Has 7 Comments

  1. Avatar of Erich Vieth
    Erich Vieth December 17, 2006 Reply

    Bush hasn't yet admitted that we invaded Iraq to control oil, but he will plainly do so before his term is up.  If not Bush himself, the Iraq Study Group is now on record:

    Advising the Bush administration on how to deal with the Iraq fiasco, the report of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group urges the president to clarify that Washington does not seek to control Iraq's oil.

    It then gets down to business and sets out exactly how Washington should take control of Iraq's oil.

    The report calls for Iraq to pass a Petroleum Law — to be drafted with U.S. help — that would allow foreign oil companies to develop Iraq's vast and largely undeveloped oil reserves (which, the report notes, are the second-largest in the world).

    See this post from Common Dreams.

  3. Avatar of Erich Vieth
    Erich Vieth September 15, 2007 Reply

    Alan Greenspan has judge declared that Iraq was about oil all along. It is something "everyone knows."

    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.

    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/artic…

  4. Avatar of Erich Vieth
    Erich Vieth September 17, 2007 Reply

    Common Dreams had this to say about the real reason we invaded Iraq:

    On the 60 Minutes, program on December 15, 2002, Steve Croft asked then-defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, “What do you say to people who think this [the coming invasion of Iraq] is about oil?” Rumsfeld replied:

    “Nonsense. It just isn’t. There-there-there are certain…………. things like that, myths that are floating around. I’m glad you asked. I-it has nothing to do with oil, literally nothing to do with oil.”

    This simply wasn't true and there is a LOT of evidence proving the lie:

    [In the] heady May of 2003 when all else seemed to be going along swimmingly, the inebriation of apparent success led to another glaring indiscretion by Wolfowitz. During a relaxed moment in Singapore late that month, Wolfowitz reminded the press that Iraq “floats on a sea of oil,” and thus added to the migraine he had already given folks in the White House PR shop.

    But wait. For those of us absorbing more than FOX channel news, the primacy of the oil factor was a no-brainer. The limited number of invading troops were ordered to give priority to securing the oil wells and oil industry infrastructure immediately and let looters have their way with just about everything else (including the ammunition storage depots!). Barely three weeks into the war, Rumsfeld famously answered criticism for not stopping the looting: “Stuff happens.” No stuff happened to the Oil Ministry.

  7. Avatar of grumpypilgrim
    grumpypilgrim May 3, 2008 Reply

    It is ironic that the rich, Christian, democratic West is dependent upon the poor, Muslim, theocratic Middle East to keep its unsustainable economy afloat. And it is also ironic that America's Christian fundies — the ones who said Katrina was God's punishment on New Orleans and AIDS was God's retribution on homosexuals…and the ones who vigorously supported Bush's invasion of Iraq — never seem to notice this irony, preferring instead to declare their own United States to be spreading the true message of God. Meanwhile, many Muslims apply their own God-based worldview to conclude that God gave oil to the Muslims for the same reason American Christians believe that their god gave AIDS to homosexuals: to punish the infidels.

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