Alan Greenspan Quotes

And whatever their publicized angst over Saddam Hussein's 'weapons of mass destruction,' American and British authorities were also concerned about violence in an area that harbors a resource indispensable for the functioning of the word economy. I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.

I fear that our true motivation is about oil and our own flailing economy; about the failure to destroy Al Qaeda and about revenge.

America did not invade Iraq because Iraqis are Muslims. Oil, money, economic interests. Who knows? But it was not because Iraqis are Muslims.

I think the Iraq War is not particularly tailored to American interests.

American oil operations are, for all practical purposes, instruments of our foreign policy.

It's a tragedy what is happening, what Bush is doing. All Bush wants is Iraqi oil. There is no doubt that the U.S. is behaving badly. Why are they not seeking to confiscate weapons of mass destruction from their ally Israel? This is just an excuse to get Iraq's oil.

I don't think for a minute we went to Iraq for oil. It just so happened that it had oil. But I think we'll come out of the Iraqi situation with a call on their oil at market price.

What is the first thing we did when we took control of Iraq? Protect the oil fields. Remember the administration quote about how the oil would pay for the war.

Iraq is a manufactured conflict for the sake of geopolitical dominance in the area.

America created a vacuum in Iraq and ISIS formed. But had we taken the oil something else would've very good happened. They would not have been able to fuel their rather unbelievable drive to destroy large portions of the world.

The Iraq War is largely about oil.

Imagine a world in which you had Saddam Hussein, who had the capacity to make a weapon of mass destruction, who was paying suiciders to kill innocent life. Imagine what the world would be like with him in power. The idea is to try to help change the Middle East. Part of the reason we went into Iraq was we thought he had weapons of mass destruction. It turns out he didn't, but he had the capacity to make weapons of mass destruction.

In Iraq, [American administration] said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction endangering mankind. With this pretext, the U.S. intervened militarily, and all they did is take control over oil fields, and oil wells.

It is high time that the international community tell Saddam Hussein and his regime that this is not an issue of negotiation with the U.N. about obligations that they undertook in 1991.

All around the world one heard or read that there was no connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda.

We went into Iraq because Saddam Hussein refused to account for his weapons of mass destruction, consistently violated UN resolutions and in a post-9/11 world no American president could afford to give Saddam Hussein the benefit of the doubt.

I believe - though I may be wrong, because I'm no expert - that this war is about what most wars are about: hegemony, money, power and oil.

By curious accident of history and geography, the world's major energy resources are located pretty much in Shiite regions. They're a minority in the Middle East, but they happen to be where the oil is, right around the northern part of the Gulf.

The Israeli lobby has clout in the U.S., which means that re-arranging the region and controlling its resources one way or another, will serve Israel through its control over the American administration.

Iraq did nothing to us. Iraq was not responsible for 9/11.

It is no exaggeration to say that Syria holds the key for nearly all of America's foreign policy goals in the Middle East. As Syria goes, so goes the region.

The mistake that was made was, of course, leaving Saddam in charge of affairs over there.

The Iraq war was not necessary.

Saddam Hussein played a terrible game of trying to deceive the world that he had weapons of mass destruction. Everyone bought it. The United States called him on his braggadocio, and we are all paying for the results - especially the American taxpayer.

The good Lord didn't see fit to put oil and gas only where there are democratically elected regimes friendly to the United States. Occasionally we have to operate in places where, all considered, one would not normally choose to go. But we go where the business is.