by Paul Glader
The Wall Street Journal
October 6, 2009
Texas investor T. Boone Pickens says he told President Bush that the war in Iraq should give America a preferred deal on Iraqi oil, at least parallel to what the Chinese have brokered.
“He said it would look like we were at war for oil,” said Mr. Pickens at the World Business Forum on Tuesday in New York. “He didn’t do anything. His term was up.”
He said China has charted a much wiser path in oil policy. Although it imports 50% of its daily oil use, China has been out arranging bulk oil purchases and ownership in the Middle East, including in Iraq. He thinks ”it’s crazy” the U.S. has fought a war in Iraq but has not placed calls on oil there to avoid accusations that the war was about oil. China “did not lose a person over there and never paid a dime on the war. They will get a call on one of the biggest oil fields in Iraq!”
“In a lot of cases, we are buying oil from people who really don’t like us,” he said. “A lot of people can figure out we are paying for both sides of the war.”
The complete article and video here.
