What kind of fools does Bush's goons think we are? It's always been oil, just like Vietnam (the oil reserves off the coast are vast) it's oil.

Many years ago I remember my 90 year-old mother saying once Tito died Yugoslavia would explode into ethnic wars and the world would stand by and do nothing and that is exactly what happened; we did nothing until the world embarrassed the US into stepping in. Why didn't we go in sooner? Because they had no oil. Same with Somalia - no oil - the US walked away. If Iraq didn't have oil the US would ignore it.

If you want to delve deeper into the effects of The US's oil diplomacy find a copy of The Seven Sisters, The Great Oil Companies and the World They Made by Anthony Sampson. Written in 1975, it tracks the history of the US and European activities in the middle east after WWII where the major oil companies (the Seven Sisters Exxon (Esso), Shell, BP, Gulf, Texaco, Mobil, Socal (Chevron) ended up as the de facto diplomats so the US could gain access to the oil while supporting the new state of Israel.

The oil companies became the conduit for "aid" for the undeveloped and backward sheikdoms and kingdoms of the desert. Big incentives and special tax treatment for the oil companies made sure that the Arab states got development help indirectly; while Washington handed out millions to Israel.

The lying is beyond belief and so blantant! It's just disgusting.

Let me give a Buffalo losers analysis. It was about oil. If Iraq had no oil we wouldn't be there. Oh other things like looting the US treasury were involved. Getting the US troops out of Saudi Arabia. But at the core it was Oil.

Realamerica1
That was the most lucid explanation i have read yet it puzzles me why the rest of this nation is completely unable to view bush, cheney and a complicit congress wether democrat or republican through such unobstructed lenses. I get massively frustrated when intellegent posters on so called liberal blogs can not figure out why democrats continue to enable bush and cheney. The democrats are just as tied to the oil industry as the republicans they are just more subtle about it.

I guess Greenspan is just another typical blowhard who has no idea what goes in on the upper reaches of intellectual Washington as typified by Bush and his cohort of chickenhawks.

Anyone can easily discern that 1991's little war was simply a humanitarian mission and the fact that US troops only protected the oil ministry in 2003 and nothing else is just a weird coincidence.

Operation Iraqi Liberation had very little to do with oil. It was about non-existent WMDs.

Let's see...Fratto is a talking head and Greenspan was the head of the Federal Reserve for how many years??
You figure out who knows the facts and who doesn't....

Maybe we will all get lucky and Greenspan will counter the Whitehouse attacks on his credibility by going a bit further. I am confident He knows all about the President's connection to 9/11. If he tells the people Bush worked closely with his friend bin Laden to enact the Trade Center attacks people would prabably listen. Never forget the Penagon's Project Able Danger that identified the plot way before the attacks. Information which was conveniently ignored allowing 9/11 to occur. The attack was a dream come true for the Bush administration's hawks and their long standing agenda.

Greenspan should have speak when he still has the power to change things. Now, it's too late. He just want to sell his book.

If y'all are so smart, and y'all know Bush knew this and that and was in on it why then you don't do something?

Well well, the truth hurts. You haven't seen nothing. Wait until the current Generals write their books, like Colin Powell, the rest of thr truth will come out. Do you think they would speak out now and put their promotions on the line or their pension????? If you worked for a living, did you ever speak out against your boss ???? If you did how long did you last???

Isn't it a shame? Someone else is lying about GWB and his administration. Why does everybody pick on him so much? Poor baby! He's just a poor, dumb cowboy trying to get along in the big city. Why is it that every time something else comes out about GWB and his merry band of misfits that the accusors are all lying? I guess we are just to take GWB's word that he is the only one telling the truth about Iraq. That'll be the day - he is the biggest liar, shirker and irresponsible "thing" that has ever hit the WH. I refuse to call him a man, a man admits his mistakes, corrects them, and finds better ways to do things. He is a lying, hypocritical "thing" who cares nothing about human life.

The former Treasury Sec. O'Neill said that Bush had always planned to invade Iraq; talked about it, talked about it, until 911 presented him and the neocons with the rationale. Saddam had no link with 911; Bin Laden was the mastermind but it was not relevant. Bush and Cheney want the oil. Cheney had alredy "distributed" to favorite oil cronies their "areas" of interest. Hunt Oil recently signed a contract with the Kurds. when Saddam was alive, he dictated the terms of the oil contract. Now, the oil fields and its revenue are the main reason the Shia government of Maliki is hesitating to reconcile with the Sunnis who also want a portion of the oil. Bush and cronies also want a portion. US troops are dying for oil; not for democracy. That's crap.

this whole thing is about. hunt oil owns the contracts in northern Iraq. It just so happens the owner of hunt oil is a longtime bush family friend.

So, it wasn't originally about the oil, but NOW it is, because the terrorists (who who had not operational presence in Iraq until we invaded)might get the oil. How convenient. It must be nice to have everything fall into place just right when every public justification for the war has proven false. Ego based reality: Whatever I want is the right thing.

the so called news needs to step up and talk about the oil. They never bring up this topic. If i here one more person call the news left wing i will scream. they are anything but left.

No offense guys, but it seems to be unanimous. 95% of you agree it was all about the oil. But your representatives in congress and your congressional watchdogs in the media are more in the 10% range. Seems to me congress and the media should know better than you. The only alternative is that your congressional reps aren't so representative and your watchdogs in the media aren't so watchful. In my opinion, you guys in the states are currently the subjects of the most sophisticated propaganda efforts ever. Don't blame yourselves or your country men/women for their confusion. Any citizenry would have difficulty sorting their way thru such propaganda. Good luck!

Remember Kuwait, scud missiles in Israel, Americans (not just men, but women and children, too) on the four airliners forced to die by Muslim terrorists, along with the Americans in the World Trade Towers, the Pentagon, and the rescuers. (This is not to mention the previous attempt on the Trade Towers in 1993.) Iraq supported the terrorists! Oil makes the world go round! With Muslim terrorists coming to live in the U.S., I think there is a plan maybe similar to the massacre of the Tutsis by the Hutu's in Rowanda. With Saddam and sons out of the way, U.S. enemies such as the terrorists, Russia, and China have three less compadres on their team in which to bring down the U.S.

From the comments posted here, Bush is dumber than rocks, yet pulled off 9-11 and hid it from everyone (TROOTHERS don't count, since all that tinfoil messes up their brainwaves.) and also started a war for his family friends, yet again there is no proof. Which is it, leftists, dumb or genius?

It would be a bit tolerable ifGeorge Bush and his criminal gang wanted Iraqi oil for America. But they want the oil for Oil companies!