Greenspan Re-writes the History of the Invasion of Iraq
Walid Khadduri Al-Hayat - 23/09/07//
"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."
In an interview with the Washington Post on Monday, Greenspan said, "I'm not saying that (oil was) the administration's motive," since "taking Saddam out was essential." He considered Saddam Hussein a danger to the US, not because he had weapons of mass destruction, but because he sought to close the Straits of Hormuz, where 18 million barrels of oil a day pours out to world markets, according to his statement on the program Today on NBC.
Greenspan is a Republican who was appointed to his important post by President Ronald Reagan in 1986, and has served six American presidents. He is known for his extreme caution in public statements, which at the time had an impact on the US and world economies. Thus, his remarks must be taken seriously by researchers and historians in the future.
It is expected that Greenspan's comments will re-write the history of the war on Iraq, which the neoconservatives claimed was about the development of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the former Iraqi regime's link to the events of 11 September 2001 in New York and Washington, although no decisive evidence has arisen regarding these two accusations.
How will the writing of the war's history change, if Greenspan's remarks are credible? First, it will clarify why Iraq was invaded in 2003, after the war in Afghanistan, and with no material justification.
This explanation will also cast doubts and questions about the "higher goal" of the war, by bringing democracy, freedom and transparency to surrounding Arab and Islamic countries, after the "liberation" of Iraq. As for the reality of US policy in the region in the future, and the true intentions behind it, the book will raise doubts about the true intentions of official US statements in the future and increase the number of people who believe in the theory of the "conspiracy," which currently dominates much of the public's interpretations of US regional policy. Greenspan's book also comes at an inopportune time for the Iraqi Oil Law, supported and strongly openly by Washington, which considers it one of the 18 benchmarks for the success of the Nouri al-Maliki government.
The US also considers the law a means for national reconciliation among the various parties in Iraq, and a way to open things up for international petroleum companies to invest in Iraq, whose reserves stand at 115 million barrels. The oil law is expected to be debated and voted on in the coming weeks, after it this was originally scheduled to take place in May. However, the draft law has become a source of division instead of agreement among Iraqi parties, similar to other legislation.
We can assume that research in the future about Greenspan's statements will shed light on many obscure issues related to the war and oil. Why, for example, did the Pentagon guard the Oil Ministry in Baghdad, while the Iraqi Museum and many other state institutions were allowed to be looted? Everyone remembers the picture of the Marine that was broadcast by the world's satellite stations, as he guarded the Oil Ministry building while the museum was robbed, and no orders were given to protect it.
Why was the Oil Ministry the only facility protected (and even some of its contents were looted, despite the protection), while American soldiers refused to protect the Oil Marketing Institution, located close-by. They let rioters enter and burn the files of Iraqi oil customers, break and steal computers belonging to this important and venerable institution, which Iraq relied upon to sell crude oil, and which brought the country only $34 billion this year.
Why were the rioters allowed to steal from other vital oil institutions in Baghdad and worksites in oil fields in the north and south of the country? Was it negligence, as some claim today, or were there other goals that were not announced at the time, as Greenspan's comments suggest?
There is a need to explain the reason for the negligence in supporting the oil sector during the era of Ambassador Bremer, since the Oil Ministry only received a very small amount of money, and oil production operations only cost the small amount of 30-35 cents per barrel. Meanwhile, in the summer of 2003, the South Oil Company, responsible for producing around 2 million barrels of crude oil per day, was forced to obtain money for expenses from the cash available to local gas stations, under the pretext that the state treasury didn't have the funds. However, the official statistics shoed that there was a surplus of at least $800 million in the state budget at the end of that year.
Why did Washington try to seize Iraqi oil when one third of Iraqi oil exports were being sold to the US market? Example, Iraq exported around 1 million barrels a day to the US on the eve of the August 1990 invasion of Iraq, while the total was 3.2 million barrels? Exports to the US continued to make up about one-third of production in the Oil for Food era at the end of the 1990s, and about the same percentage today, with slight changes from time to time.
Thus, what was required from Iraqi oil? To see American companies get their hands on oil during the exploration and production phases, until the export phase? National companies were performing this task over the last three decades, and most of their profits went to the state treasury. If it was necessary to see cooperation with international companies, we know very well that there was a need for this cooperation after the destruction inflicted on the oil industry over three decades, due to wars, sanctions and domestic strife, and the resulting emigration by Iraq's oil industry cadres.
A person with the weight of Greenspan should have been aware of the impact of these comments on US policy toward Iraq and the Middle East in general. It's important now to search for the necessary evidence to document his comments, examine the background for them and avoid making such mistakes in the future.
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.
*Dr. Walid Khadduri is an expert in energy affairs
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