Corrections and clarifications

[furtherfield]

Corrections and clarifications

Thursday June 5, 2003

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.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/corrections/story/0,3604,971436,00.html