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A report which was posted on our website on June 4 under the heading
"Wolfowitz: Iraq war was about oil" misconstrued remarks made by the
US deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, making it appear that he
had said that oil was the main reason for going to war in Iraq. He did
not say that. He said, according to the Department of Defence website,
"The ... difference between North Korea and Iraq is that we had
virtually no economic options with Iraq because the country floats on
a sea of oil. In the case of North Korea, the country is teetering on
the edge of economic collapse and that I believe is a major point of
leverage whereas the military picture with North Korea is very
different from that with Iraq." The sense was clearly that the US had
no economic options by means of which to achieve its objectives, not
that the economic value of the oil motivated the war. The report
appeared only on the website and has now been removed.
		-- Corrections and clarifications, 2003-06-06
		   http://www.guardian.co.uk/corrections/story/0,3604,971436,00.html
		   See also "A nasty slip on Iraqi oil," by Ian Mayes,
		   2003-07-07 
		   http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,972482,00.html

Tags: heading guardian leverage iraqioil clarifications iraqwar goingtowar paulwolfowitz economicvalue northkorea wariniraq secretarypaul teeteringontheedge departmentofdefence economicoptions defencewebsite economiccollapse usdeputydefencesecretary