fix articles 136457, but administration
Oil had nothing to do with Washington's motives for the invasion, we were told. "The only interest the United States has in the region is furthering the cause of peace and stability, not in [Iraq's] ability to generate oil," said press secretary Ari Fleischer in late 2002. But at a January briefing an unnamed "senior Defense official" revealed that Gen. Tommy Franks and his staff "have crafted strategies that will allow us to secure and protect those fields as rapidly as possible in order to preserve those prior to destruction...