For years, every time the left would say the war in Iraq is really about oil, the right would scoff and reject the argument out of hand. And yet, there was Bush yesterday, laying out a new argument for the importance of the war: we have to look out for all that oil.
President Bush on Tuesday answered growing anti-war protests with a fresh reason for American troops to continue fighting in Iraq: protection of the country’s vast oil fields that he said would otherwise fall under the control of terrorist extremists. […]
A one-time oilman, Bush has rejected charges that the war in Iraq is a struggle to control the nation’s vast oil wealth. While Bush has avoided making links between the war and Iraq’s oil reserves, the soaring cost of gasoline has focused attention on global petroleum sources.
Bush said the Iraqi oil industry, already suffering from sabotage and lost revenues, must not fall under the control of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida forces in Iraq led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
“If Zarqawi and bin Laden gain control of Iraq, they would create a new training ground for future terrorist attacks,” Bush said. “They’d seize oil fields to fund their ambitions. They could recruit more terrorists by claiming a historic victory over the United States and our coalition.”
At a political level, I can see the reasoning behind the argument. The White House is a) desperate to find an argument to justify the war that might resonate with the public; and b) anxious to show that the president, like the typical consumer, is worried about the high price of gasoline.
But I’m not sure if the White House has thought through the implications of this new argument.
First, by connecting the war to concerns about Iraq’s oil, the president may simply be reinforcing the widely held belief in Iraq that we’re only there because we want the country’s national resources. Bush’s new selling point may only serve to buttress the worst fears of those in Iraq who are anxious to see us leave anyway.
Second, by bringing up the issue, Bush is inadvertently reminding us of how poorly his administration has handled the issue from the beginning. Remember, before the war, the Bush gang insisted that Iraq’s oil money would be key to a post-Saddam future. Paul Wolfowitz, on March 27, 2003, said, “We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.” Donald Rumsfeld told Fortune Magazine in the fall of 2002 that we needn’t be worried about the excessive costs of the war in Iraq: “If you [worry about just] the cost, the money, Iraq is a very different situation from Afghanistan… Iraq has oil.”
That was, of course, before Iraq’s oil money started disappearing.
After the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the United States took control of all of the Iraqi government’s bank accounts, including the income from oil sales. The United Nations approved the financial takeover, and President Bush vowed to spend Iraq’s money wisely. But now critics are raising serious questions about how well the United States handled billions of dollars in Iraqi oil funds.
Iraq’s oil resources generate billions of dollars — money the United States promised to protect after overthrowing Saddam Hussein.
Now, Frank Willis, a former senior American official in Iraq, tells NBC News the United States failed to safeguard the oil money known as the Development Fund for Iraq.
“There was, in my mind, pervasive leakage in assets of Iraq, and to some extent, those assets were squandered,” says Willis. […]
NBC News has learned that a draft government audit faults the United States for “inadequate stewardship” of up to $8.8 billion in oil money, handed over to Iraq’s ministries but never fully accounted for.
Oil revenue was supposed to be the one thing the Bush gang was good at. The Bush-Cheney ticket, after all, was the first ticket in American history to feature, not one, but two former oil industry executives. Nevertheless, the gang that can’t shoot straight managed to screw up Iraq’s oil money. Badly.
Now Bush is arguing that we need to stay in Iraq so we can look after Iraq’s oil? Given the circumstances, I’m a little surprised Bush would want to go there.