Why did Bush lie and say that the Iraqi oil would pay for the war?

Question

Actually, Bush didn't say it but nearly evryone in his administration did infer that the Iraqi oil would pay for the war.

Press Secretary Ari Fleischer: “Well, the reconstruction costs remain a very -- an issue for the future. And Iraq, unlike Afghanistan, is a rather wealthy country. Iraq has tremendous resources that belong to the Iraqi people. And so there are a variety of means that Iraq has to be able to shoulder much of the burden for their own reconstruction.” [Source: White House Press Briefing, 2/18/03]

Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage: “This is not Afghanistan…When we approach the question of Iraq, we realize here is a country which has a resource. And it’s obvious, it’s oil. And it can bring in and does bring in a certain amount of revenue each year…$10, $15, even $18 billion…this is not a broke country.” [Source: House Committee on Appropriations Hearing on a Supplemental War Regulation, 3/27/03]

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz: “There’s a lot of money to pay for this that doesn’t have to be U.S. taxpayer money, and it starts with the assets of the Iraqi people…and on a rough recollection, the oil revenues of that country could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years…We’re dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.” [Source: House Committee on Appropriations Hearing on a Supplemental War Regulation, 3/27/03]

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: “If you [Source: worry about just] the cost, the money, Iraq is a very different situation from Afghanistan…Iraq has oil. They have financial resources.” [Source: Fortune Magazine, Fall 2002]

State Department Official Alan Larson: “On the resource side, Iraq itself will rightly shoulder much of the responsibilities. Among the sources of revenue available are $1.7 billion in invested Iraqi assets, the found assets in Iraq…and unallocated oil-for-food money that will be deposited in the development fund.” [Source: Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearing on Iraq Stabilization, 06/04/03]

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: “I don't believe that the United States has the responsibility for reconstruction, in a sense…[Reconstruction] funds can come from those various sources I mentioned: frozen assets, oil revenues and a variety of other things, including the Oil for Food, which has a very substantial number of billions of dollars in it. [Source: Senate Appropriations Hearing, 3/27/03]

Answer 1

I don't like Bush but I don't think he came right out and said that He implied it many times.I think it was an assumption he had.He thought he would have globable unity on this war as he did in Afghanistan and he could pretty much control what he wanted anywhere because he was a hero.He thought this war would end as soon as Baghdad fell.That's why he made no long term plans for the war.

Answer 2

One has to be able to tell the difference between wishful thinking & an out & out lie.

No matter what the market price of oil is it isn't expensive to pump it out of the ground in Iraq. (Compared to other sites)

The wish was to get this oil in the hands of the major oil companies.

One of the big hold ups to things getting better in Iraq is the dividing up of the profits from oil.

The Bush administration would have too much of the profits go to outside oil companies.

Answer 3

I'm sure it's making some contribution.
The shortfall is being addressed by way of US construction contracts that were sewn up before they invaded, before they decided that the weapons inspections weren't heading them in the right direction, for the towns and cities that they already decided to reduce to rubble - doh!

'Up to the second cost of the war in Iraq':-
http://www.classroomtools.com/iraq_war.htm
(scroll down)

Answer 4

First of all, how can Iraq pump oil in when the fields have been targeted by insurgents? Sabotage is a big problem, plus Iraq has been plagued by a civil war that prevents the new government from concentrating on the economy.

Answer 5

He didn't say that.

The part he knowingly lied about was the hidden WMD and Iraq's involvement in 9/11.

Answer 6

What! I never heard of this! You mena we would extract oil and then use it by selling it then paying for the war? Or that the Iraqi citizens would use it to re-build their own country? I don't get it. If what you're sayis is true, then George Bush needs Jesus!

Answer 7

Because he wanted a war. He told his biographer in 1999 that if he got elected, he would start a war so he could be a "war president" and therefore "have a successful presidency".

He also said it would only take "weeks, not months"... and here we are four years later.

Answer 8

actually he didn't lie...(and some say the oil was his excuse for war in the first place to gain control of the fields)
more like, the whole warfare went completely out of his own control.

Answer 9

This is a President notorious for his miscalculations.

His perspective is completely warped.

Answer 10

To be precise, it wasn't Bush, but his handler Paul Wolfowitz who claimed this.