Correction

Yesterday, we cited a story in the Guardian newspaper that quoted U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz as saying the U.S. invaded Iraq for the oil. We removed that story from our website today after the Guardian issued the following correction:

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.