OIL AND WAR AND WOLFOWITZ

Wolfowitz seems to have admitted that oil was the main reason for the war against Iraq. (Link via SK Bubba, who got it from this cool site; see also Daily Kos).

I went to the original article in Die Welt and found the original article and the original quote, and it seems to be pretty damning, if it's accurate, but I don't want to ride this too hard. The paper reports that at an asian economic summit at which questions about North Korea were being raised, Wolfowitz attempted to outline the difference between the U.S. approaches in Iraq and in North Korea:

"Betrachten wir es einmal ganz simpel. Der wichtigste Unterschied zwischen Nordkorea und dem Irak ist der, dass wir wirtschaftlich einfach keine Wahl im Irak hatten. Das Land schwimmt auf einem Meer von Öl."

Let's look at it very simply. The most important difference between North Korea and Iraq is that we simply had no choice, economically, in Iraq. The country swims on an ocean of oil.

It is at least possible that Wolfowitz was trying to calm the fears of representatives from Asian states here; he may just have been reassuring them that North Korea will not be the target of a military action. This is probably a very important task for members of the administration right now. And, in addition, given that we don't have the full speech, it was at least possible that Wolfowitz was arguing that if Iraq had WMD's, the fact that it was also an oil state is relevant for whether or not military action is necessary. However you slice it, though, it's not a great quote. I want to see the original transcript before I give in to my own fears in this direction.

MORE: Kevin Drum is on to this one, and it looks like there are simple translation problems here. See his post for the official version of Wolfowitz's comments, which indicate that for Wolfowitz the real difference is that Iraq wasn't liable to economic pressure because of its oil reserves.

MORE: My friend Mr. Gould, Tocqueville-scholar and democracy promoter extraordinaire, calls the Guardian's coverage "egregious." He may be right; is it too much to ask for them to check up on their sources before they take a quote third hand (i.e., into German at Die Welt, then back into English)?

AND STILL MORE: The Guardian apologizes, and others do, too. This must have just seemed like a story that was too good to pass up, and it turns out to have been too good to be true. Oh well.

At the end of the day, probably the strongest arguments regarding Iraq are going to be that the policy hasn't worked very well even measured by its own goals. . .