LOST IN THE TRANSLATION

Now, according to the Guardian, Wolfowitz was misquoted when it was claimed he said that the war in Iraq was all about oil. His actual quote (from Conason):

"Look, the primarily difference -- to put it a little too simply -- 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 problems in both cases have some similarities but the solutions have got to be tailored to the circumstances, which are very different."

Suddenly the sanctions were never devastating to the Iraqi people, and suddenly Saddam didn't use oil revenues for palaces, but was a populist hero! Expanding social services to each and every Iraqi! (well hey, Bin Laden did call him a "socialist") Also, NK has nukes, Iraq doesn't and never did. Nukes don't fall from the sky, you need money to put those babies together. Meanwhile, just before the war, Iraq's military was a third of the size it was in 1991.

Wolfowitz's corrected quote does nothing to steer anybody away from the implication that a big chunk of our rationale for going to war in Iraq had something to do with that "sea of oil".