Alan Greenspan on Why he Wrote That the Iraq War Was About Oil

I had an hour-long conversation with Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman. He was talking about the economy and his new memoir, The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World.

He talks about the presidents he has worked with -- from Richard M. Nixon, who made him feel uncomfortable, and Gerald R. Ford, who he liked. He talks about the years he worked alongside Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld in the Ford administration.

His Libertarian stands are much in evidence, as he assesses security issue versus civil liberties issues.

And he explained why he wrote that the war is Iraq is about oil.

Here is part of what he said:

Watch the entire conversation tonight on PBS or see it tomorrow on the Charlie Rose website.

Comments

[OckhamsElectricRazor]

What concerns me about Greenspan is his silence as the events unfolded. Did he press the issues of fiscal responsibility and energy independence; or did he acquiesce oil interests that own the Bush admin and most of Congress? It is easy to look back and say that he was disturbed about events; but it is what he DID that tells the tale.

[ipitombi]

Harry Reid is sooooo right. Greenspan is a major league HACK, and a four-eyed social climber. I gotta stop listening to his BS

[Hoelder]

Explain to me how Saddam could have endangered the world traffic of Oil? The region has some of the most highly equipped armies in the world: Saudi Arabia is armed by the US, Pakistan has nuclear weapons and missile technology, Saddam could not defeat the Iranians, even with poison gas, Israel has nuclear weapons, Kuwait has American troops and two carrier fleets are at or near the region. How come after so many testimonies stating that he does not have WMD's, can anybody claim that the threat to the oil supply would crash western civilization into turmoil? It is another preposterous suggestion to justify an offensive war. And about the USSR nukes: Long before the US really seriously got into talks with the east, the countries on both sides of the iron curtain were working on normalized relation. It is the strange idea that Reagan ended the cold war. In fact he did very little, outspending other nations is not a good diplomatic effort. In the end Gorbachev had already open dialogs with many countries in Europe, but the US President was just to self righteous to participate.

[Doofus]

Saddam was a 'tin-pot dictator' with
great wealth & considerable political power,
in control of s *very* valuable resource, and
it was realized he was militarily vulnerable.

So he was a nuisance & he presented an
opportunity, an irresistable combination for
a certain puissant president.

Keeping the oil flowing, to the entire world,
is essential to the world economy. Having US
in a position, literally, to manage that activity
would seem to be very useful & important.
Not to mention profitable. If only we'd pulled it off better.

Or, alternatively, it's not so much the oil
as it is the *profits* from the oil.

So even if Saddam didn't *really* endanger the
(flow of) oil, it's convenient to pretend that
he did & he's not around to argue the point.

[thetone1]

In this interview Greenspan was stating the obvious fact that the West has a tenuous hold on its energy supply, and that this represents the most serious economic vulnerability, and that a serious disruption of this supply would have very serious short term consequences, not only for big shots, but for everyone. How would our society cope with an instant economic depression such as this country has not experienced for three generations? Even in the best of times we are a fractious society awash in guns and violent ideas and imagery.

This is absolutely not an ideological issue. A Democratic or even a Socialist President would have to confront exactly the same set of crises if our energy supply were disrupted.

Of course the terms "our" and "disrupted" are loaded, but it is irrelevant.

Suppose that Bushcheney Co. had taken an honest realist position with the American public and with our allies in the industrialized world.

Of course in the actual course of events around the run up to the war so much more was going on. Bush probably got tangled up in his own Oedipal thing. These guys got duped by the Iraqi exiles. They thought this war would be quick and tidy like Grenada or Panama and disdained planning.

The fact is that many on the moderate left would have been able to make our peace with this war if it had been done right, most especially in the aftermath and occupation.

[marika]

"These guys got duped by the Iraqi exiles."

I don't think so. They looked for and latched onto any straw they could present to uphold their plan to invade Iraq. No matter how far-fetched anything that could be made to go boum-boum was added to their grotesque scenario.

This was a planned, premeditated intervention, they listened only to people who told them what they wanted to hear. That is not a mistake...­it is stupidity and hubris

[thetone1]

"They looked for and latched onto any straw they could present to uphold their plan to invade Iraq. No matter how far-fetched anything that could be made to go boum-boum was added to their grotesque scenario" - by most accounts this seems to be absolutely true. And I keep hoping that someone at the top of the US government is going to get impeached or tried for these crimes.

However, I think that for history's sake it is vitally important to really understand the best possible argument for having gone to war. Otherwise we are at the mercy of dim-witted conspiracy theorists, and we will very likely have to revisit the same scenarios once again 30 years hence. Clearly Rumsfeld and Cheney, even if Bush had the cognitive skills of a dull-witted seventh grader in a rural Texas schoolroom, had a logically consistent view of the set of facts which led them to think that risking the US's treasure, reputation, and lives of our armed forces, and the collateral deaths and injuries of civilians in the field of battle (probably in that order of importance) was worth it, that there was something out there that had to be done. The fact that they decided to lie about it and defame their critics has not helped the comprehension of the war, even though it would have made it easier on them, now that the chips are down, if there had at least been an honest rationale expressed for the invasion four years ago. Now it's too late for them, but it is not too late for historians to understand it.

We already know how Huffpost readers *feel* about the war, about Bushcheney Co. Beyond a certain self-pleasure it is boring to re-read these posts. What we need is the graphic novel version of this thing, boiled down to the essentials: players, relationships, strategic objectives and vulnerabilities, emotions at play, scenarios at the time...

Personally, I think that history will blame W. He is the weak link.

[Scarabus]

Someone help out here. What was the principle about "offing" a person (or a nation?) because he/she/it *might* pose a threat?

Anyhow, what's fascinating is that Greenspan, rational and intelligent as he is, allows no place for morality, ethics, or diplomacy in his political equations. He's not a moral and civilized human being. He's a "nature red, in tooth and claw," "survival of the fittest," social Darwinist through and through.

Analytically, he sees things pretty clearly. Morally? He's a monster.

[LightningJoe]

In a nutshell, that's the trouble with big brains. If we didn't have them, there wouldn't be nearly seven billiooo,ooo,ooon of us and counting, and the Earth would be a much healthier planet.

Our vaunted thinking organs get attitudes, and decide that cleverness is sooo much more important than our other capabilities, and that our cleverness makes us sooo much better than all the other life on the planet.

But brains aren't omniscient. Social darwinists overlook the "social" part. If we hadn't evolved as a team players, sharing information and helping each other, we'd still be in caves throwing rocks at lions.

Communism failed because real, fallible people had to administer the "equal" sharing. Capitalism is failing because we can't survive without some sort of commonality. The myth that we each climb over others to "win" in life is starving us of the common support we need to face and solve our big problems.

All the small problems are solved, or as near as makes no difference. All we've got left are the huge ones, like getting along with other cultures, and facing our own limitations as eco-participants.

[Marlyn]

So Mr.Greensp­an, has the USA made oil more secure?

It was always just a fear in your mind, NOT REALITY.

[baylaw73]

http://www.gravmag.com/oil.html#imports
As of 2005, we get 19% of our oil from the Middle East, according to this website.
I don't understand why, at 19%, Middle East oil is so important to our domestic supply that we would invade Iraq (which is obviously less than the whole 19%). In 2002, before the war, US imports from the Persian Gulf region amounted to 19.8 percent of our total imports. However, it may be that we are in it for something else. I don't buy Greenspan's argument about Saddam and the Straits of Hormuz.
What is the real interest in Iraqi oil that led to the invasion?

[seawolf77]

Peak oil. Google it. It's the end of the world as we know it. Suburbia dead. Fossil fuels are being used up at a rate way faster than we are finding more of the stuff. Forget tar sand oil shale mumbo jumbo. As one commentator put it we are using the cleaner fuel (natural gas) to make a dirty one (oil)...li­ke making crabmeat out of caviar. Iraq oil is the greatest single material prize in the history of the world and now it's ours.

[baylaw73]

Thanks. As usual, there is as much out there claiming peak oil is a fraud as there is claiming it is real. No doubt about oil being a material prize though.

[BillZBubb]

Greedspin's view of the Middle East is delusional as Bush's. His revisionist excuses for the invasion of Iraq are as phony now as they were at the time. I sure wish for once you'd go after a right wing guest's statements with as much vigor as you challenge those from the left.

[Roger4]

I don't think Greenspan has the perspective to really understand the issues; he was concerned about the economic turmoil that would follow if Saddam got a nuclear weapon. The US needs to make itself more energy efficient and less dependent on the Middle East. Instead what we have done is run up a huge deficient and put the US in a far worse economic position that it was in prior to the war. Additionally, Human Rights Watch has estimated Saddam Hussein's regime killed 250,000 to 290,000 people over 20 years. Estimates of how many Iraqis have died since the current war began range from 50,000 to over 600,000. So, where is the benefit to the US, to our children and grandchildren?

[seawolf77]

Not only did they kill the electric car, they killed civilization. We are headed for a demand destruction event. It is the only way to head off the peak of oil for a few more years.

[bethinCary]

Yes we need oil. But what the oil industry has done is just criminal blackmailing of the American public. Detroit is coerced to make cars that are like tanks that guzzle gas. Scientist are disuaded from saying there is any global warming.Oi­l companies are never even brought into the discussion about the war-even though BUSH/Cheney have worked in no ohter industry. Now the guy contributing to GWs' library in Texas for $37 million, Hunt is creating more chaos by making deals for his own selfish greed with the Kurds.
It IS a conspiracy and the American people should take the oil companies to a RICO lawsuit and lay it out for everyone to understand.
Oil companies are making record profits. Gas was $1.5 a gallon-now it's close to 3.
We need to seriously get down to some alternatives. The oil industry knows this too.
that's why they killed the electric car.

[The Collinbrandt]

The Bush people never invaded Iraq to bring the price down; it was to increase the price to infinite levels as has happened today. Bush and his generals never want to end this war because it is too profitable. I smell treason in the air!!!

[CommanderWhitehead]

It's a pity he didn't speak up when it might have made a difference.

[BurtR]

The flow of oil is still tenuous. Let the politicians ask honestly if we are willing to sacrifice our young to keep those who are now rich rich for another hundred years.

[hopeless277]

So to secure that oil, Bush want's PSA's. PSA's that would give the major international oil corporations 75% of the profit of Iraqi oil for 30 years. And 20% after that. You find ONE COUNTRY that would agree to that kind of deal without a gun to their head. You can't.
Greenspan is essentially arguing that instead of treating the disease of oil addiction, we just steal what we need to feed our addiction exactly like a common street junkie. I wonder how much R&D into alternative fuels a trillion dollars would fund. Not to mention the fact that one of the hundreds of thousands of people murdered in Iraq during our occupation could have possibly turned out to be the George Washington of Iraq. We'll never know now. Street junkie America. Jonesin' for oil night and day. What a country.

[Danny]

There were electric cars in circulation some 10-15 years ago. Electric cars can be powered by electricity generated by solar power. Yet these marvelous little cars were "recalled" and systematically destroyed in 1995. See the documentary movie "Who killed the Electric Car?".

[Joeyjackal]

I watched your entire interview with Alan Greenspan last evening and was proud to be a North Carolinian as a native such as yourself showed your always reliable disarming but probing ability to get your guests to share important personal perspectives without fidgetting. Furthermore I hope you have an opportunity to explore this incident earlier this week whereby a questioning Florida university student at the Kerry forum (where questions were permitted) was tasered even as he's on the ground with a half dozen security officers above and around. Might I suggest an interview with the student Mr. Myers himself or Greg Palast, the noted English journalist who is the author of the "mysterious yellow book" (as reported by the Washington Post) that he's clearly holding that gave rise to his queries even if his delivery was somewhat obnoxious or poorly considered.

[FarSeeingArt]

At the risk of drifting too off-topic.
google "minuteman speech columbia". The campus police will not allow anymore assaults of guest speakers at campus facilities. This student's conduct was in violation of the rules of conduct and was removed after resisting the officer's instructions.