Greenspan backtracks on charge Iraq war 'about oil'

Following an explosive comment in his memoirs that seemed to skewer the U.S. war in Iraq as a quest for Mideast oil, the former head of the U.S. Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, backtracked on the claim in an interview published Monday.

"I was not saying that that's the administration's motive," Greenspan, 81,told the Washington Post, when pressed on the charge in his book that "the Iraq war is largely about oil."

In reaction on Monday to the book, which was scheduled for sale in the U.S. on the same day, White House spokesperson Dana Perino admitted U.S. President George W. Bush was "a bit surprised" to learn what Greenspan had written.

"I think that the president was a bit surprised by some of the criticism in the book, for example regarding tax cuts," she told reporters, adding that Bush still "has great respect" for Greenspan.

In his interview with the Washington Post, Greenspan also said he was clear about his disapproval of the government's economic policy toboth Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney.

"They're not surprised by my conclusions,"Greenspan said.

Intense media interest inthe conservative central banker'smemoir, The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World, began to build on Friday when excerpts were released.

Reporters zeroed-in on Greenspan's criticisms of what he considered to be reckless spending under the Bush administration, as well as disparaging remarks about the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

In defence of Greenspan's assertion thatirresponsible spending by theBush administration had plunged the country into a deficit of $413 billion in fiscal 2004, Perino said that such was the cost of U.S. security after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"One reason we had increased spending after 9/11 was in order to protect the country," she said. "We are not going to apologize for increased spending on national security."

In other sections of his memoir, Greenspan, who served as Federal Reserve chairman for 18 years, praised former U.S. president Bill Clinton for a sound economic plan in 1993.

Greenspan, who stepped down from the Federal Reserve job in January 2006,is regarded as one of America's most powerful and influential economists of the past two decades.