Baghdad – The U.S. military is not in Iraq “to seize anybody’s oil”, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said, distancing himself from remarks by President Donald Trump before arriving on an unannounced visit to Baghdad on Monday.
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“I think all of us here in this room, all of us in America have generally paid for our gas and oil all along and I’m sure that we will continue to do so in the future,” Mattis told a small group of reporters traveling with him as he discussed his objectives for the trip.
“We’re not in Iraq to seize anybody’s oil.”
But Trump said we are.
Here is a campaign statement
“I always said we should take the oil, take the oil, we always knew that the spoils of war belong to the victor”.
Why is his administration backtracking?