WASHINGTON, 18 September 2007 — Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, for years an inscrutable seer on the economy, is causing a stir by alleging in his new memoir that “the Iraq war is largely about oil.”
Greenspan, who as head of the US central bank was famous for his tight-lipped reserve, is uncharacteristically direct, also accusing President George W. Bush of abandoning Republican principles on the economy. “I’m saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows — the Iraq war is largely about oil,” he wrote in reported excerpts of “The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World,” which was released yesterday.
However in an interview with The Washington Post, Greenspan clarified that while securing global oil supplies was “not the administration’s motive,” it had presented the White House with an opportunity to make the case that removing Saddam Hussein was important for the global economy.
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates rejected the charge. “I know the same allegation was made about the Gulf War in 1991, and I just don’t believe it’s true,” he said on ABC television on Sunday.
Members of the US Congress, who by a broad majority also voted to authorize the use of military force against Iraq, also dismissed Greenspan’s assertion. “I don’t believe that 77 United States senators on a broad, bipartisan basis would have authorized the use of force... if it was only about oil,” Republican Sen. John Cornyn told CNN.
