Greenspan clarifies war for oil claim

Apparently not wanting to throw completely in with MoveOn.org, International ANSWER and Code Pink, former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan gave additional color to the claim in his new book that the Iraq war was about oil.

Clarifying a controversial comment in his new memoir, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said he told the White House before the Iraq war that removing Saddam Hussein was "essential" to secure world oil supplies, according to an interview published on Monday.

Greenspan, who wrote in his memoir that "the Iraq War is largely about oil," said in a Washington Post interview that while securing global oil supplies was "not the administration's motive," he had presented the White House before the 2003 invasion with the case for why removing the then-Iraqi leader was important for the global economy.

"I was not saying that that's the administration's motive," Greenspan said in the interview conducted on Saturday. "I'm just saying that if somebody asked me, 'Are we fortunate in taking out Saddam?' I would say it was essential."

I've been telling anyone who'll listen that if there was nothing but sand in the Middle East, we wouldn't give a crap what happened there. But since there's sand and the world's biggest oil supply, we have an economic interest in keeping that oil flowing.

And the rest of the world has an economic interest in helping out, or at least staying the hell out of our way while we do it.