McCain: Remarks on oil not about Iraq war

[Gunny]

PHOENIX, Arizona (AP) -- Republican Sen. John McCain has been forced to clarify his comments suggesting the Iraq war involved U.S. reliance on foreign oil. He said he was talking about the first Gulf War and not the current conflict.

Sen. John McCain has clarified remarks he made Friday in Denver, Colorado, about the Mideast and oil.

At issue was a comment he made at a town hall-style meeting Friday morning in Denver, Colorado.

"My friends, I will have an energy policy that we will be talking about, which will eliminate our dependence on oil from the Middle East that will prevent us from having ever to send our young men and women into conflict again in the Middle East," McCain said.

The presumptive GOP nominee sought to clarify his remarks later Friday after his campaign plane landed in Phoenix. He said he didn't mean the U.S. went to war in Iraq five years ago over oil.

"No, no, I was talking about that we had fought the Gulf War for several reasons," McCain told reporters.

One reason was Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, he said. "But also we didn't want him to have control over the oil, and that part of the world is critical to us because of our dependency on foreign oil, and it's more important than any other part of the world," he said.

"If the word `again' was misconstrued, I want us to remove our dependency on foreign oil for national security reasons, and that's all I mean," McCain said.

more ... http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/05/03/mccain.iraq.ap/index.html

Duh. You leftwingbots can take your spin, roll it up nice and tight and stick it.