Yesterday, we cited a story in the Guardian newspaper
that quoted U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz as saying
the U.S. invaded Iraq for the oil. We removed that story from our
website today after the Guardian issued the following
correction:
A report which was posted on our website on June 4 under the
heading ?Wolfowitz: Iraq war was about oil? misconstrued remarks
made by the US deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, making it
appear that he had said that oil was the main reason for going to
war in Iraq. He did not say that. He said, according to the
Department of Defence website, ?The … difference between North
Korea and Iraq is that we had virtually no economic options with
Iraq because the country floats on a sea of oil. In the case of
North Korea, the country is teetering on the edge of economic
collapse and that I believe is a major point of leverage whereas
the military picture with North Korea is very different from that
with Iraq.? The sense was clearly that the US had no economic
options by means of which to achieve its objectives, not that the
economic value of the oil motivated the war. The report appeared
only on the website and has now been removed.
