The Cost Of Oil

Someone who's not a screaming lefty finally said it:

AMERICA’s elder statesman of finance, Alan Greenspan, has shaken the White House by declaring that the prime motive for the war in Iraq was oil.

In his long-awaited memoir, to be published tomorrow, Greenspan, a Republican whose 18-year tenure as head of the US Federal Reserve was widely admired, will also deliver a stinging critique of President George W Bush’s economic policies.

However, it is his view on the motive for the 2003 Iraq invasion that is likely to provoke the most controversy. “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil,” he says.

Greenspan, 81, is understood to believe that Saddam Hussein posed a threat to the security of oil supplies in the Middle East.

Britain and America have always insisted the war had nothing to do with oil. Bush said the aim was to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction and end Saddam’s support for terrorism.

The war in Iraq of course has done nothing to increase the security of oil supplies and has in fact decreased security. When Republican Senator John Warner asked General Petraeus if Iraq policy had made the country more secure he would not answer. He wouldn't because the answer is no. Al-Qaeda is stronger now than it was prior to 9-11 in large part because of Dick Cheney's war for oil in Iraq.

Now I don't know if Osama bin-Laden is dead or alive but as Bruce Hoffman explained earlier in the week it really doesn't matter, Ayman al-Zawahiri is Scarier Than Bin Laden. The Telegraph supplies a few more details today.
Bin Laden sidelined as al-Qaeda threat revives

Osama bin Laden's deputy has seized control of al-Qaeda and rebuilt the terror network into an organisation capable of launching complex terror attacks in Britain and America.

Intelligence officials have told The Sunday Telegraph that bin Laden has not chaired a meeting of al-Qaeda's ruling shura, or council, in more than two years.

Instead, Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden's nominal number two, is credited with rebuilding the terror network since the Afghan war in 2001.

Intelligence sources in Washington have revealed that Western spy chiefs were recently forced to revise dramatically their view that al-Qaeda was so depleted that it was little more than a cheerleader for extremists.

Instead, British and American intelligence agencies believe that a network of terrorist cells, funded, controlled and supported by al-Qaeda's central command, based in the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan, is in place again.

All of this occurred while George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were wasting American lives and treasure in an attempt to realize their dream of controlling the Iraqi oil fields. Because of their incompetence they have failed to do even that. Meanwhile al-Qaeda has rebuilt and reinvented itself to become an even greater threat.

Al-Zawahiri's task has been made easier because not a single prominent al-Qaeda leader has been captured since March 2006, nearly 18 months ago.

Citing information gathered by Pakistani intelligence, Bruce Hoffman, a member of the US Military Academy's Combating Terrorism Centre, said: "Bin Laden is the brand name but al-Zawahiri is the grand -strategist.

"He has taken control of al-Qaeda. Despite the new video [released this month], bin Laden has ceased to be a major force in decision-making and propaganda effort."

A window on the changing outlook on al-Qaeda came in July when a US government National Intelligence Estimate, concluded that the organisation had "regrouped".

Prof Hoffman said: "The idea that they were just a franchise for ideology was simply not true. While we were saying that al-Qaeda had been diminished and degraded, it was just wishful thinking."

What forced the re-evaluation was the plot last August to blow up 10 aircraft en route from Britain to the US. "That sent shock waves through the intelligence -agencies of both countries," said Prof Hoffman. "It was incontrovertible evidence that al-Qaeda was back, and that it was prepared to go after hard targets."

A former British intelligence officer said that al-Qaeda under al-Zawahiri's direction had promoted a new generation of leaders to the highest echelons of the shura, a group of about 20 to 30 leaders who govern operations, finance and religious fatwahs.

George W. Bush and Dick Cheney should be impeached for failing to protect the United States.