Greenspan: "Iraq War Is Largely About Oil"

Former Federal Reserve Board chief Alan Greenspan's memoir hits the bookstores on Monday, and the weekend papers are filled with excerpts. The big story, all the accounts agree, is Greenspan's criticism of President George W. Bush and the Republican Congress' fiscal profligacy. He also gives high praise to the fiscal responsibility exhibited by President Bill Clinton, whose mind for details mirrors his own. "Republicans Deserved to Lose, Greenspan Writes" screamed one headline, referring to the 2006 Congressional elections.

But the Washington Post story by Bob Woodward contained the most damning revelation. Alas, it was buried five paragraphs from the end of a very long story.

Without elaborating, he writes, "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil."

Now there's a headline that deserved to be bannered across every front page in America: Greenspan: "Iraq War Is Largely About Oil." I wonder if his failure to elaborate includes a failure to discuss the fiscal implications of the war, since they will haunt this country for the next 50 years. Caring for tens of thousands of crippled veterans, the failure to invest in our own infrastructure, failing to even address, much less reduce our dependence on oil, scrapped social programs, a less generous retirement for millions of Americans without private savings -- the list of reasons why average Americans will take a step back and spit on the sidewalk when Bush's name gets mentioned a quarter century hence goes on and on.

Sadly, neither the Wall Street Journal nor New York Times accounts mentioned the telling paragraph.