Yesterday on ABC’s This Week roundtable, Ted Koppel said the U.S. needs to stay in Iraq because of the “huge amount of oil and natural gas there”:
KOPPEL: U.S. troops are in a part of the world that produces a huge amount of oil and natural gas. We will have U.S. troops in that region for years to come, whether we want to or not. … And with the price of oil going up to a 4.5 dollars a gallon, imagine what would happen to the price of oil if we precipitously pull troops out of the Persian Gulf. It’s not going to happen.
Watch it:
Koppel also suggested that the U.S. stay in Iraq to contain Iran. “You talked a little bit about Iran, and the dangers of Iran. This is not a time to say we’re going to pull all the U.S. troops out of there,” he said.
Update
In Feb. 2006, Koppel penned an op-ed in the NYT entitled “Will Fight for Oil.”
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