After Greenspan’s war-for-oil remark, Pentagon gives more noble reasons

Gates’s defence came a day after thousands of anti-war protesters marched in Washington. A spokeswoman for one of the groups who organized the march said more than 200 protesters were taken into custody, including at least 10 Iraq war veterans, when they attempted to cross a police barrier near the US Capitol.

Greenspan, in his new book, The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World, echoed long-held complaints of many critics that a key motivating force in the war is to maintain US access to the rich oil supplies in Iraq.

“Whatever their publicised angst over Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction,” American and British authorities were also concerned about violence in an area that harbors a resource indispensable for the functioning of the world economy,” Greenspan wrote.