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30 January 2003 Iraq: It's Not About Oil The following op-ed appeared newsweekly Panorama’s January 30 issue Some commentators in the media have suggested that the U.S.' true objective in the recent crisis over Iraq is to seize control of that country's oil resources. As in any free society, they are entitled to their opinions, even if they are inaccurate. But it is also important that we distinguish the international community’s one real motive for taking action, from the smokescreen of false reasons made by those commentators arguing that it’s all about oil. For any leader, there is no more difficult or serious decision than to initiate military action. President Bush has said that war with Iraq would be a final option. No President decides to put American lives in jeopardy unless the peace and stability of the U.S., or its allies, have been seriously threatened. The President and the Congress have decided that the Saddam Hussein regime, with its reckless record of development and use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), represents a real danger to the Iraqi people and the free world. (This is not just Washington's opinion; the UN Security Council has declared repeatedly since 1991 that Baghdad's WMD program is a threat to international peace and security.) Simply put, Saddam Hussein is too dangerous to be left in control of these weapons. Either he disarms, as he pledged to do in 1991, or he will be disarmed, by force if necessary. If we do resort to military force, disarmament will be our motive and our objective. Iraq's oil resources are a factor that must be taken into account in planning military action, just as military planners must take into account Saddam's decision to concentrate his military assets in civilian neighborhoods, and the possibility that he could seek to kill as many of his own people as he can in his final hours. Iraq's oil resources must be protected from Saddam's apparent intention to sabotage them, as he did the oil fields of Kuwait. This is not because the United States needs them, but because the people of Iraq will need them to build a better future free of dictatorship. It may be necessary, after a possible military action, for an international security force to be present in Iraq, and one of their tasks may be to assist the Iraqis in rebuilding their oil infrastructure. But the money from oil sales would not go to the U.S. Treasury or to U.S. oil companies, but to the government of a free Iraq. In fact, if the United States were only interested in having access to abundant oil, we would have decided long ago to simply accept Iraq's banned weapons as an unpleasant fact of life, and go about doing business as usual with Saddam. If the U.S. does resort to military force, it will do so not to seize territory or treasure, but to liberate or protect. Anyone who believes otherwise does not understand America or Americans. After the U.S. helped liberate Europe and Japan, it allowed the people there to determine their own economies and democracies. It intervened in Korea and Vietnam to assist the governments resisting aggression from the North, not to seize any resources there. In 1991, after the U.S. led a coalition to liberate Kuwait, the Kuwaiti people and government were able to reclaim territory and resources seized by Saddam Hussein. Finally and most recently, the U.S. and its allies liberated Afghanistan from the scourge of the Taleban and Al Qaeda. Far from profiting from any resource takeover, the American people have so far spent nearly a billion dollars to help the Afghan people recover and reconstruct. Last fall, the American Congress voted overwhelmingly to authorize President Bush to use force if necessary to disarm the Iraqi regime. Each of the 373 senators and congressmen who voted to authorize force understood the seriousness of this action, and understood that this action was ultimately accountable to the American people. And each understood perfectly well that the American people would never countenance putting their sons and daughters in harm's way for a war to seize oil wells that properly belong to another people.
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