Greenspan Unplugged

Alan Greenspan is speaking this week at GW. I may go to see him, but I’m really not that interested. A few years ago, I would have jumped at the chance. Nowadays, I feel he’s just trying to defend his record, which is an increasingly difficult job.
One of the aspects I didn’t like of his tenure was how he made his views known on subjects not related to monetary policy. As I’ve said many times before, the Federal Reserve is far less important than most people realize. I think the fact that it’s so secretive helps keep the illusion alive.
Last night I saw Greenspan on 60 Minutes describe how he purposely gave incomprehensible answers to Congress. He worked hard at doing so. He and Lesley Stahl were giggling as if it were the cutest thing. It’s not.
Today’s WSJ has more from Greenspan:

Mr. Greenspan was himself a behind-the-scenes advocate of overthrowing former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. He says he felt “getting Saddam out of there was very important,” not because of weapons of mass destruction, but because he was convinced the Iraqi dictator wanted to control the Strait of Hormuz, through which a sizable portion of the world’s oil passes. That would enable him to threaten the U.S. and its allies. He said he conveyed that view to both Mr. Cheney and then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, another friend from the Ford administration, but doubts that played a part in the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq.
He recalls one administration official telling him such an argument couldn’t fly politically, which Mr. Greenspan assumed to mean because of Mr. Bush’s and Mr. Cheney’s background in the oil industry. Yesterday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, appearing on ABC’s “This Week,” rejected the assertion in Mr. Greenspan’s book that the Iraq war “is largely about oil.” Mr. Gates said, “it’s about stability in the Gulf. It’s about rogue regimes trying to develop weapons of mass destruction.”

Posted by on September 17th, 2007 at 9:31 am


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