Leading White House Hawk Admits Oil Was Main Reason For Military Action
against Iraq

June 4 (Radio Havana Cuba) - A leading White House hawk has admitted that oil was the main
reason for military action against Iraq, confirming the worst fears of those
opposed to the US-led war. US Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told
an Asian security summit in Singapore last weekend that Washington had no
choice in Iraq because the country is "swimming on a sea of oil." The
statements weren't published until Wednesday in the German newspapers Der
Tagesspiegel and die Welt.

Wolfowitz reportedly went on to tell journalists at the conference that the
US was set on a path of negotiation to help defuse tensions between North
Korea and its neighbors precisely because North Korea is not oil-rich. One
of the most aggressive promoters of war against Iraq has already undermined
his and the British government's position over Baghdad's alleged weapons of
mass destruction. In an interview last month with Vanity Fair, he said the
Bush administration used the banned weapons justification as a bureaucratic
excuse that everyone could agree on.

Prior to that, his boss, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, had already
undermined Washington and London's position by saying Saddam Hussein may
have destroyed his banned weapons before the war. Observers say Wolfowitz's
frank assessment of the importance of oil could not come at a worse time for
the US and UK governments, which are both facing fierce criticism at home
and abroad over allegations that they exaggerated the threat posed by Saddam
Hussein.