[news] What's Happening? Boron Interviews Chomsky

[Ytzhak]

What's Happening?
Boron Interviews Chomsky


by Noam Chomsky and Atilio Boron
June 14, 2003


Atilio A. Boron: Looking at the recent US policies in Iraq, What do you
think was the real goal behind this war?

Noam Chomsky: Well, we can be quite confident on one thing. The reasons
we are given can't possibly be the reasons. And we know that, because
they are internally contradictory. So one day, Bush and Powell would
claim that "the single question," as they put it, is whether Iraq would
disarm and the next day they would say it doesn´t matter whether Iraq
disarms because they will go on and invade anyway. And the next day
would be that if Saddam and his group get out then the problem will be
solved; and then, the next day for example, at the Azores, at the summit
when they made an ultimatum to the United Nations, they said that even
if Saddam and his group get out they would go on and invade anyway. And
they went on like that. When people give you contradictory reasons every
time they speak, all they are saying is: "don't believe a word I say" .
So we can dismiss the official reasons.

And the actual reasons I think are not very obscure. First of all,
there´s a long standing interest. That does not account for the timing
but it does account for the interest. And that is that Iraq has the
second large oil reserves in the World and controlling Iraqi oil and
even ending up probably with military bases in Iraq will place the
United States in an extremely strong position to dominate the global
energy system even more than it does today. That's a very powerful lever
of world control, quite apart from the profits that comes from it. And
the US probably doesn't intend to access the oil of Iraq; it intends to
use primarily safer Atlantic basin resources for itself (Western
Hemisphere, West Africa). But to control the oil has been a leading
principle of US foreign policies since the Second World War, and Iraq is
particularly significant in this respect. So that's a long standing
interest. On the other hand it doesn't explain the timing.


Full article:

http://vancouver.indymedia.org/news/2003/06/53164_comment.php#53854
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