Having now looked at the full text, Woflowitz's reference to "Iraq floating on a sea of oil" was in reference to whether or not Iraq could be coerced using economic methods versus North Korea being coerced by economic methods. In fact, China has already coerced North Korea by threatening to shut off oil, they did so temporarily recently, triggering the three way talks between the US, China, and North Korea, in Beijing. Iraq was not subject to such a shutoff.
So, no, Wolfie did not say that we fought the war in Iraq to get Iraq's oil.
In fact, although a clear outcome of the war is to put the US in decisionmaking control of Iraq's oil, at least for the near term, I am convinced that this was a minor factor in the decision to go to war. I think it had more to do with people in the administration at crucial points actually believing there was a link between Saddam and al Qaeda, when there was not, and also Bush's personal history as the "enforcer" of his dad's administration: so to get personal revenge against Saddam for his reported effort to assassinate W's old man. We are talking the petty obsessions of a "reformed" alcoholic.
The usual arguments for an oil motive are not as they seem. In fact for people closely tied to the Texas oil industry like Bush and Cheney, the signals were very mixed. On the one hand Bush would like lower oil prices in the near future to juice the economy for his reerection. OTOH, lower oil prices hurt the profits of Texas- based oil companies. In fact, Bush is about where OPEC is on this, let the price be about $25 per barrel, enough to keep the oil companies and OPEC making money, while not so high as to scare US consumers off being addicted to their gas hog SUVs.
The more immediate economic beneficiaries of the war are clearly administration-connected companies like Halliburton, Bechtel, and Fluor. There might yet be some gains for the oil companies in the future, but that is very uncertain and unclear. Barkley Rosser ----- Original Message ----- From: "Chris Brooke" <chris.brooke at magdalen.oxford.ac.uk> To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Sent: Wednesday, June 04, 2003 5:26 PM Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Wolfowitz Speaks Plainly: Oil Was The Prime Motivation
> > I think it would be a good idea to see what
> >Wolfie actually said before everybody analyzes
> >it to shreds. He is very far from stupid.
>
> The full transcript is here. Analyse away:
> http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2003/tr20030531-depsecdef0246.html
>
> Chris
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>