Greenspan Misses Cheney’s Memo: Spills the Beans on Oil
By Ray McGovern on September 17, 2007 at 12:43 AM in Current Affairs
For those still wondering why President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney sent our young men and women into Iraq, the secret is now “largely” out.
No, not from the lips of former secretary of state Colin Powell. It appears we shall have to wait until the disgraced general/diplomat draws nearer to meeting his maker before he gets concerned over anything more than the “blot” that Iraq has put on his reputation.
Rather, the uncommon candor comes from a highly respected Republican doyen, economist Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006, whom the president has praised for his “wise policies and prudent judgment.” Sadly for Bush and Cheney, Greenspan decided to put prudence aside in his new book, The Age of Turbulence, and answer the most neuralgic issue of our times—why the United States invaded Iraq.
Greenspan writes:
“I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.”
Everyone knows? Would that it were so. But it’s hardly everyone. Sometimes I think it’s hardly anyone.
There are so many, still, who “can’t handle the truth,” and that is all too understandable. I have found it a wrenching experience to be forced to conclude that the America I love would deliberately launch what the Nuremburg Tribunal called the “supreme international crime”—a war of aggression—largely for oil. For those who are able to overcome the very common, instinctive denial, for those who can handle the truth, it really helps to turn off the Sunday football games early enough to catch up on what’s going on.
60 Minutes
On January 11, 2004, viewers of CBS’ 60 Minutes saw another of Bush’s senior economic advisers, former treasury secretary Paul O’Neill discussing The Price of Loyalty, his memoir about his two years inside the Bush administration. O’Neill, a plain speaker, likened the president’s behavior at cabinet meetings to that of “a blind man in a roomful of deaf people.” How does he manage? Cheney and “a praetorian guard that encircled the president” help Bush make decisions off-line, blocking contrary views.
Cheney has a Rumsfeldian knack for aphorisms that don’t parse in the real world— like “deficits don’t matter.” To his credit, O’Neill picked a fight with that and ended up being fired personally by Cheney. In his book, Greenspan heaps scorn on that same Cheneyesque insight.
O’Neill made no bones about his befuddlement over the president’s diffident disengagement from discussions on policy—except, that is, for Bush’s remarks betraying a pep-rally-cheerleader fixation with removing Saddam Hussein and occupying Iraq.
Why Iraq? “Largely Oil”
O’Neill began to understand better after Bush’s inauguration when the discussion among his top advisers abruptly moved to how to divvy up Iraq’s oil wealth. Just days into the job, President Bush created the Cheney energy task force with the stated aim of developing “a national energy policy designed to help the private sector.” Typically, Cheney has been able to keep secret its deliberations and even the names of its members.
But a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit forced the Commerce Department to turn over task force documents, including a map of Iraqi oilfields, pipelines, refineries, terminals, and potential areas for exploration; a Pentagon chart “Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts;” and another chart detailing Iraqi oil and gas projects—all dated March 2001.
On the 60 Minutes, program on December 15, 2002, Steve Croft asked then-defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, “What do you say to people who think this [the coming invasion of Iraq] is about oil?” Rumsfeld replied:
“Nonsense. It just isn’t. There—there—there are certain…………. things like that, myths that are floating around. I’m glad you asked. I—it has nothing to do with oil, literally nothing to do with oil.”
Au Contraire
Greenspan’s indiscreet remark adds to the abundant evidence that Iraq oil, and not weapons of mass destruction, was the priority target long before the Bush administration invoked WMD as a pretext to invade Iraq. In the heady days of “Mission Accomplished,” a week after the president landed on the aircraft carrier, then-deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz virtually bragged about the deceit during an interview. On May 9, 2003, Wolfowitz told Vanity Fair:
“The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy, we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on, which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason…”
That was seven weeks after the invasion; no weapons of mass destruction had been found; and Americans were growing tired of being told that this was because Iraq was the size of California. Eventually, of course, Wolfowitz’ boss Rumsfeld was forced to concede, as he did to me during our impromptu TV debate on May 4, 2006: “It appears that there were not weapons of mass destruction there.”
But three years before, during that heady May of 2003 when all else seemed to be going along swimmingly, the inebriation of apparent success led to another glaring indiscretion by Wolfowitz. During a relaxed moment in Singapore late that month, Wolfowitz reminded the press that Iraq “floats on a sea of oil,” and thus added to the migraine he had already given folks in the White House PR shop.
But wait. For those of us absorbing more than FOX channel news, the primacy of the oil factor was a no-brainer. The limited number of invading troops were ordered to give priority to securing the oil wells and oil industry infrastructure immediately and let looters have their way with just about everything else (including the ammunition storage depots!). Barely three weeks into the war, Rumsfeld famously answered criticism for not stopping the looting: “Stuff happens.” No stuff happened to the Oil Ministry.
Small wonder that, according to O’Neill, Rumsfeld tried hard to dissuade him from writing his book and has avoided all comment on it. As for Greenspan’s book, Rumsfeld will find it easier to dodge questions from the Washington press corps from his sinecure at the Hoover Institute at Stanford.
Eminence Grise…or Oily
The other half of what Col. Larry Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s former chief of staff at the State Department, calls the “Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal” is still lurking in the shadows. What changed Cheney’s mind toward Iraq from his sensible attitude after the Gulf War when, as defense secretary, he defended President George H. W. Bush’s decision not to attempt to oust Saddam Hussein and conquer Iraq? Here is what Cheney said in August 1992:
“…how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth?…not that damned many. So I think we got it right…when the president made the decision that we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq.”
Cheney’s rather transparent remarks as CEO of Halliburton in autumn 1999 suggest what lies behind the cynical exploitation of genuine patriotism to recruit throwaway soldiers to trade for the chimera of control over the oil in Iraq:
“Oil companies are expected to keep developing enough oil to offset oil depletion and also to meet new demand…So where is the oil going to come from? Governments and the national oil companies are obviously in control of 90 percent of the assets. Oil remains fundamentally a government business. The Middle East with two-thirds of the world’s oil and the lowest cost is still where the prize ultimately lies.”
Not only Cheney, but also many of the captains of the oil industry were looking on Iraq with covetous eyes before the war. Most people forget that the Bush/Cheney administration came in on the heels of severe shortages of oil and natural gas in the U.S., and the passing of a milestone at which the United States had just begun importing more than half of the oil it consumes. One oil executive confided to a New York Times reporter a month before the war: “For any oil company, being in Iraq is like being a kid in F.A.O. Schwarz.”
Canadian writer Linda McQuaig, author of It’s the Crude, Dude: War, Big Oil, and the Fight for the Planet (2004), has noted that decades from now it will seem to everyone a real no-brainer. Historians will calmly discuss the war in Iraq and identify oil as one of the key factors in the decision to launch it. They will point to growing US dependence on foreign oil, the competition with China, India, and others for a share of the diminishing world supply of this precious, nonrenewable resource, and the fact that Iraq “floats on a sea of oil.” It will all seem so obvious as to provoke little more than a yawn.
Other Factors Behind the Invasion
There were, to be sure, other factors behind the ill-starred attack on Iraq—the Bush administration’s determination to acquire large, permanent military bases in the area outside of Saudi Arabia, for one. But that factor can be viewed as a subset of the energy motivation—the need to have substantial influence over the extraction and disposition of the oil in Iraq. In other words, the felt need for what the Pentagon prefers to call “enduring” military bases in the Middle East is a function of its strategic importance which, in turn, is a function—you guessed it—of its natural resources. Not only oil, but natural gas and water as well.
I find the evidence persuasive that the other major factor in the Bush/Cheney decision to make war on Iraq was the misguided notion that this would make that part of the world safer for Israel. Indeed, the so-called “neo-conservatives” still running U.S. policy toward the Middle East continue to have great difficulty distinguishing between what they perceive to be the strategic interests of Israel and those of the United States. And in my view, they show themselves extremely myopic on both counts.
Why Are Americans Silent?
Could it be that most of us Americans remain “good Germans” because we are unwilling to recognize the moral implications of starting what is likely to be the first of the resource wars of the 21st century?; because we continue to be comfortable hogging far more than our share of the world’s natural resources?; and because we prefer to look the other way when our leaders tell us that aggressive war is necessary to protect that siren-call, “our way of life,” from attack by those who are just plain “jealous?”
Perhaps a clue can be found in the remarkable reaction I received after a lecture I gave two and a half years ago in a very affluent suburb of Milwaukee. I had devoted much of my talk to the implications of what I consider the most important factoid of this century: the world is running out of oil.
Afterwards some twenty folks lingered in a small circle to ask follow-up questions. A persistent, elegantly dressed man, who just would not let go, dominated the questioning:
“Surely you agree that we need the oil. Then what’s your problem? Some 1,450 killed thus far are far fewer than the toll in Vietnam where we lost 58,000; it’s a small price to pay… a sustainable rate to bear. What IS your problem?”
I asked the man if he would feel differently if one of the (then) 1,450 already killed were his own son. Judging from his abrupt, incredulous reaction, the suggestion struck him as so farfetched as to be beyond his ken. “It wouldn’t be my son,” he said.
And that, I believe, is a HUGE part of the problem.
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC. A former CIA analyst, he is now on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.
An earlier, shorter version of this article has appeared on Consortiumnews.com
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By Sarah Palin (Release date: November 17. 2009)
Yes, Greenspan, who has an interesting history of drinking ideological kool aide (Ayn Rand anyone?), found the Bush/Cheney team to be ultimately, completely irrational (Greenspan actually said nice things about Bill Clinton). Irrationality is a fatal flaw in a Rand-land outlook.
Of course it’s about oil. It’s the only thing that makes a degree of twisted sense. Too bad for all of the dead Iraqis and Americans that Busy & Cheney’s greed far exceed their organizational competencies. Otherwise, they’d had realized it was an immoral (and dumbly immoral) course of action to invade a country that was of no military threat to the US.
It wouldn’t be his son, but it’s OK for other peoples’ sons and daughters to die to maintain his lifestyle. An amazing admission in terms of unapologetic selfishness.
This is a fascinating Article by Ray about the “Real World” that should be in every editorial Page in the country..and all over the MSM..all day and all night
like shock therapy..until all the Braindead..Desensitized ..Stoic..Depressed..over Drugged People in the United States understand there has been a complete Coup of our Government..especially the Executive Branch..and to the fact that One Half of Congress supports the COUP and the other half are Jack Asses who are brain dead too..As Mr. Gates repeated the same old Mantra today..they all think we just “Need to wait and see How things work out..” Next year..or the year after.”HoHum American people..Ho Hum..You are getting very sleepy..We will wake you up when we want to program you for the holiday shopping specials..
Alan Who..??
Thanks Ray..great article…
well said and really kind of depressing. but i won’t stop looking for the truth and doing what i can to help those who try to do the right thing
For a different perspective on Greenspans legacy read the following….
Are the Banks In Trouble? by Mike Whitney
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18335.htm
If you don’t have time to read the whole article here is a revealing few paragraphs..
So, who’s to blame? The finger-pointing has already begun and more and more people are beginning to see how this massive economy-busting equity bubble originated at the Federal Reserve— it is the logical corollary of former Fed-chief Alan Greenspan’s “easy money” policies.
Economist and author Henry C K Liu sums up Greenspan’s tenure at the Fed in his article “Why the Subprime Bust will Spread”:
“Greenspan presided over the greatest expansion of speculative finance in history, including a trillion-dollar hedge-fund industry, bloated Wall Street-firm balance sheets approaching $2 trillion, a $3.3 trillion repo (repurchase agreement) market, and a global derivatives market with notional values surpassing an unfathomable $220 trillion.
On Greenspan’s 18-year watch, assets of US government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) ballooned 830%, from $346 billion to $2.872 trillion. GSEs are financing entities created by the US Congress to fund subsidized loans to certain groups of borrowers such as middle- and low-income homeowners, farmers and students. Agency mortgage-backed securities (MBSs) surged 670% to $3.55 trillion. Outstanding asset-backed securities (ABSs) exploded from $75 billion to more than $2.7 trillion.”( Henry Liu, “Why the Subprime Bust will Spread”, Asia Times)
“The greatest expansion of speculative finance in history”. That says it all.
But no one makes the case against Greenspan better than Greenspan himself. Here are some of his comments at the Federal Reserve System’s Fourth Annual Community Affairs Research Conference, Washington, D.C. April 8, 2005. They show that Greenspan “rubber stamped” every one of the policies which have since metastasized and spread through the entire US economy.
Greenspan: Champion of Subprime loans:
“Innovation has brought about a multitude of new products, such as subprime loans and niche credit programs for immigrants. Such developments are representative of the market responses that have driven the financial services industry throughout the history of our country. With these advance in technology, lenders have taken advantage of credit-scoring models and other techniques for efficiently extending credit to a broader spectrum of consumers.”
Greenspan: Main Proponent of Toxic CDOs
“The development of a broad-based secondary market for mortgage loans also greatly expanded consumer access to credit. By reducing the risk of making long-term, fixed-rate loans and ensuring liquidity for mortgage lenders, the secondary market helped stimulate widespread competition in the mortgage business. The mortgage-backed security helped create a national and even an international market for mortgages, and market support for a wider variety of home mortgage loan products became commonplace. This led to securitization of a variety of other consumer loan products, such as auto and credit card loans.”
Greenspan: Supporter of Loans to People with Bad Credit
“Where once more-marginal applicants would simply have been denied credit, lenders are now able to quite efficiently judge the risk posed by individual applicants and to price that risk appropriately.
These improvements have led to the rapid growth in subprime mortgage lending…fostering constructive innovation that is both responsive to market demand and beneficial to consumers.”
“Improved access to credit for consumers, and especially these more-recent developments, has had significant benefits.
Unquestionably, innovation and deregulation have vastly expanded credit availability to virtually all income classes. Access to credit has enabled families to purchase homes, deal with emergencies, and obtain goods and services. Home ownership is at a record high, and the number of home mortgage loans to low- and moderate-income and minority families has risen rapidly over the past five years. Credit cards and installment loans are also available to the vast majority of households”
Greenspan: Big Fan of “Structural Changes” which increase Consumer Debt
As we reflect on the evolution of consumer credit in the United States, we must conclude that innovation and structural change in the financial services industry have been critical in providing expanded access to credit for the vast majority of consumers, including those of limited means. Without these forces, it would have been impossible for lower-income consumers to have the degree of access to credit markets that they now have.
This fact underscores the importance of our roles as policymakers, researchers, bankers, and consumer advocates in fostering constructive innovation that is both responsive to market demand and beneficial to consumers.” (Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan; Federal Reserve System’s Fourth Annual Community Affairs Research Conference, Washington, D.C. April 8, 2005
Greenspan’s own words are the most powerful indictment against him. They show that he played a central role in our impending disaster. The effort on the part of media pundits, talking heads, and so-called experts to foist the blame on the rating agencies, predatory lenders or gullible mortgage applicants (who may have lied on their loans) misses the point entirely. The problems began at the Federal Reserve and that’s where the responsibility lies.
And think about this…
Now they are pushing bio fuel. Considering that they do not believe in Global warming this makes sense.
But does it make sense to use a fuel that is dependent on the weather for it’s production?
Considering what is predicted for this country in terms of droughts and floods and hurricanes and tornadoes it’s going to be another disaster.
And hell will freeze over before my kids would go either, but I care a great deal about all those killed in this war, Iraq and American.
>>> “It wouldn’t be my son,” he said.
Those of us of the Lower Orders know, of course, that it’s our duty to go and die so that Brent, Trent and Chad can take their proper places at First Boston and UBS Warburg upon graduation without the inconvenience of national service.
My offspring have already been, the stepson to Afghanistan twice and my daughter, career military, still East of Greenwich. The stepson doesn’t believe, pursuant to his Asian Excursions, that any patch of earth outside North America is worth US blood - an interesting viewpoint for an immigrant who enlisted on 9/15/2001 and took a 65% pay cut for his trouble.
Female Offspring (Phi Beta Kappa, BS EE) has too much rank to speak out, but it appears that Even Full Commanders Get The Blues.
Me, I’ve made three round trips from CONUS to the Gulf hauling rolling stock since ‘03, and was busy as a beaver filling up the POL tanks preparatory to the Invasion’s start. And, of course, a couple of seasons in the Southeast Asia Conference a while back.
For the money we’ve pissed away on this fiasco, we could have vaccinated a millions of kids, built boocoo hospitals, and cranked out some very nice wind farms.
And you would have left millions of Iraqis better off than they are today and will be for generations to come.
Not to mention the estimated million plus Iraqis who would have been alive today but for your efforts.
Amazing and the MSM? Not interested…..
Don’t leave out this crackpot reasoning. Does anyone in Israel feel safer yet?
”Why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us? I’ll tell you what I think the real threat (is) and actually has been since 1990 — it’s the threat against Israel,” Zelikow told a crowd at the University of Virginia on Sep. 10, 2002, speaking on a panel of foreign policy experts assessing the impact of 9/11 and the future of the war on the al-Qaeda terrorist organisation.
”And this is the threat that dare not speak its name, because the Europeans don’t care deeply about that threat, I will tell you frankly. And the American government doesn’t want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it is not a popular sell,” said Zelikow.
http://ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=23083
….I’ll tell you what I think the real threat (is) and actually has been since 1990 — it’s the threat against Israel,” Zelikow told a crowd at the University of Virginia on Sep. 10, 2002, speaking on a panel of foreign policy experts assessing the impact of 9/11 and the future of the war on the al-Qaeda terrorist organisation….
Al Jazeera in English had an excellent piece today about yet another threat to Israel. It’s the Greek Church in Jerusalem. The Greek Church reports that the Israelis are trying to make Jerusalem all Jewish. So the Greek Orthodoxi, headed by a charasmatic priest who speaks Greek and Arabic, along with Palestinian Christians AND Muslims are going to form their own combined religion in Jerusalem. Together, these combined groups will outnumber the Jews in Jerusalem. The Greek church isn’t about to step aside for the Jews. The Greeks were there first, actually before and during the time of the Romans. The Palestinians are also descended from Greeks and Romans. Al Jazeera coverage in English is excellent!
Prosecute the bastards, every damn one of them, for war crimes. The Nuremburg principals are still law in most of the civilized world, even in the US, and the Bush/Cheney cabal have violated them time after time, in Iraq and in Afghanistan. As I understand an issue of jurisdiction/venue, before an international war crimes tribunal can move against these bastards, there must have been a failure of the courts of their national origin to prosecute them for their crimes. I think we will see such a failure of American courts. It is unlikely that a US Attorney in the US will attempt to have them indicted and tried, even after a Dem is elected President. I hope someone at the Hague has been paying attention.
I supported the invasion of Afghanistan to get bin Laden. The fact that he and al Zwahiri are still free gives lie to that invasion and occupation, too. Why are we still in Afghanistan, to oversee poppy production, or to protect a pipeline?
GB
I see that Alan has “backed off” on his comments somewhat. Still trying to have it both ways.
saw a program called “beyond the beltway” last night, where the pundits touched on the subject of greenspan’s new book. the bush apologist, shot back and said that greenspan was a lefty, defending his position saying “do you know who is wife is?” implying she is an uber-lefty, bush hater. i don’t know her political leanings offhand, but it seems these apologists, rather than stating any facts, resort to personal attacks on the messenger. in this instance, lefty = america hater. that line of defence is getting old. they need to come up with some new material.
thank you for a good, informative article, larry and ray.
For the sake of argument, I’m going to pretend for the moment that I’m totally cold-hearted (like, for example, Alan Greenspan), and wonder that since this is a war over oil, just how much of that irreplaceable natural resource we’ve wasted fighting over the damned stuff. Maybe it would have been more efficient to, like, negotiate or something.
Well… (sigh)… perhaps if the illustrious Greenspan says it, then the press will actually lend a bit more credence to the ‘politically inconvenient’ notion that oil lies at the core of this fiasco, after all.
I’m no Greenspan fan, but every bit helps. And the ‘assumption’ everyone knows this smacks it to anyone with their head still in the sand.
Bet his Christmas invite to the WH will be mislaid, lost, or missent this year.
I have posted before that its all about the oil contracts. Thats why Bush wants all the extra time, he cant seem to get them to sign over all the freakin oil. Lets face it people, we only go to war with countries who have something we want. Theres lots of people worse than Sadam killing others, and we dont seem to be in there trying help those sorry basterds.
When dumb shits vote Texas Oil men into office,they should know what they are going to get, and we got sons of bitches stealing us and the world BLIND.
americans think the US has more than 20% of conventional crude reserves globally …thats how out to lunch the citizenry is. peak oil is probably now & you’re right: we’re looking at the start of oil wars
great post here
Well Larry, and you’ve surpassed yourself again - it’s a great piece, I’m shocked….
Mr turncoat, Alan Greenspan, has turned coat on his masters!!!! Well actually, I think he is of the Rockerfella school, so that would make him a closet Democrat, so perhaps this is no great surprise.
My mum came out here recently (hence I have not been posting). Per chance on the picturesque ferry ride to Manly beach I was quized about some of the local islands in view by a lady sitting beside me. She kept on using “we” when she was clearly on her own. Is this an American tradition. It turned out she was an Alabameran….er, or someone from Alabama. Or rather, let’s get this right, someone who had moved to Alabama from New York.
Of course [with APEC.....or is that OPEC] I asked if she had come here to avoid Bush (it was the day after he left Australia). With that she launched into a verbose tirade (devoid of substance or anything even remotely factual) on how the huge majority were absolute supporters of Bush and we were witnessing a, brace yourselves, media conspiracy hell bent on the downfall of the great man.
I responeded with a simple question “Why [do people support Bush]?”
To wit….I was greated with silence. Clearly she was not an unintelligent woman, even though she did have a preoccupation with shopping at Wallmart (or K-mart, Target…here) - places I cross as I walk by. My concern was her intrenched denial, her absolute unreasoned refusal to contemplate, devoid of compassion, swelling hatred in some kind of sinister, surrogate attempt to deitise everything patriotic. That is my concern with America and the World.
Let us hope her passion for hatred is not infectious.
Actually, I think the war is going exactly as planned. Everybody who’s anybody in the military industrial complex is making money hand over fist. We’ve got a whole new group of contractors (mercenaries) trained and familiar w/ the country. When the time comes - when the US military is completely kaput - we’ll see this for what it is: a corporate takeover of a sovereign country for profit. The reason no one talks about what ‘victory’ looks like, is because there’s not supposed to be a victory that involves the US winning. Victory is the US military out, and then the corporate whores will operate w/ complete impugnity - killing anyone who even looks like they might stand in the way. Then, and only then, will the oil flow. And, the US be damned! The oil will go to the highest bidder, and that means the end of cheap oil here, ’cause we’re so in debt - especially with the looming cost of rebuilding an army basically from scratch (more proteering available here) - that China will likely be able to offer a far better price than we can. And the oil companies know no loyalty. Read “War is a Racket” http://lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm
I can’t recall which site from yesterday’s readings referenced it, but it sums up the war business.
Country Joe MacDonald basically summed it up in his “I feel like I’m fixin’ to die rag” from the last quagmire:
Come on wall street don’t be slow
why man this war is a go-go
there’s plenty good money to be made by
supplying the army with the tools of its trade
let’s hope and pray that if they drop the bomb,
they drop it on the Viet Cong
Left gatekeepers propagated the myth the war was about oil. The truth is zionists like Greenspan have dragged the West into The Middle East conflict on Israel’s side, on the back of a series of false flag terror attacks in the West blamed on ‘Muslim Terror’. Thats the truth. Thats why you don’t hear it.