SEE? THE WAR WASN’T ABOUT OIL

First the collapse of Iraq. Then the collapse of all the justifications for the Iraq war.

The latest is the assurances of Bush administration officials that Iraqi oil would pay for our war. Today’s New York Times goes on at length about a “book-length report” handed to the administration about a year ago that showed extremely low expectations for Iraqi oil production.

What the administration did with the results of its own report is, by now, predictable.

“Despite those findings, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz told Congress during the war that ‘we are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon,’ ” the article says.

Of course, the “relatively soon” arguably lets Wolfowitz and the rest of the pack off the hook, but it’s likely his audience didn’t take it to mean “years after we authorize the next $87 billion, and then maybe some more.”