The US-led invasion of Iraq was a colonial war and there were some in the United States who saw it as a means of getting their hands on Iraqi oil, a senior Saudi ambassador has told and Irish newspaper.
Prince Turki al-Faisal, ambassador to Ireland and the UK said Washington's stated aims in going to war in Iraq masked a more cynical reality.
"No matter how exalted the aims of the US in that war, in the final analysis it was a colonial war very similar to the wars conducted by the ex-colonial powers when they went out to conquer the rest of the world ...," Prince Turki said in an interview in the
Irish Independent.
"What we have heard from American sources they were there to remove the weapons of mass destruction which Saddam Hussein was supposed to have acquired."
Saudi Arabia, a key US regional ally, opposed the war despite tensions with Iraq since its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
"What we read and hear from our commentators in America and sometimes congressional sources, if you remember going back a year ago, there was the issue of the oil reserves in Iraq and that in a year or two they would be producing so much oil in Iraq that, as it were, the war would pay for itself," the envoy said.
Prince Turki said US pledges to bring freedom and democracy to Iraq remained "still just aims."
"The individual Iraqi, until he can actually declare that his government is truly representative of his wishes and aspirations must still consider himself occupied," he said.