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Oil a factor in Iraq conflict, says Australian defence minister

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Oil a factor in Iraq conflict, says Australian defence minister

James Sturcke and agencies
Thursday July 5, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

Sydney Opera House 2003: Nelson's comments threaten to reignite anti-war protesters' claims that the invasion was more a grab for oil than a bid to destroy weapons of mass destruction. Photograph: Chris McGrath/Getty Images

Photo: http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2007/07/05/sydney192.jpg

The Australian defence minister today triggered a political storm when he suggested that protecting Iraq's huge oil reserves was a reason for the continuing deployment of foreign troops in the war-torn country.
Brendan Nelson told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that Iraq was "an important supplier of energy, oil in particular, to the rest of the world, and Australians ... need to think what would happen if there were a premature withdrawal from Iraq".

During the interview Mr Nelson insisted oil was not the main reason behind Australia's decision to remain in Iraq. That was "to make sure a humanitarian crisis does not develop between Sunnis and Shiites and driven by al-Qaida if we were to leave prematurely".

The Australian prime minister, John Howard, rushed to play down Mr Nelson's comments, which threatened to reignite anti-war protesters' claims that the 2003 invasion was more a grab for oil than a bid to destroy Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, which proved to be non-existent.

Mr Howard insisted oil had nothing to do with his country's involvement in the Iraq war.

"We are not there because of oil and we didn't go there because of oil," Mr Howard told Sydney Radio 2GB. "A lot of oil comes from the Middle East - we all know that - but the reason we remain there is that we want to give the people of Iraq a possibility of embracing democracy."

Mr Howard, a close ally in George Bush's "war on terror", sent 2,000 troops to support US and British forces in the Iraq invasion.

Australia maintains 1,000 troops in Iraq, supported by 600 air force and navy personnel in the region.

The opposition Labour party, which opposed the war, has pledged to remove most of Australia's troops from Iraq if it wins elections due later this year.

The Labour defence spokesman, Robert McClelland, accused the government of shifting from its denial that oil was a motivation for the war.

"It's taken them four years to acknowledge that fact," Mr McClelland said.

Iraq has the world's third largest oil reserves after Saudi Arabia and Iran, according to the BP statistical review of world energy 2007. War opponents argued long before hostilities began in March 2003 that the US administration's main interest in toppling Saddam was to loosen the grip of Saudi Arabia and the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) on global oil prices.

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