Chavez blames U.S. invasion of Iraq for soaring oil prices

Chavez said as a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Venezuela favors the fixing-price system that has worked well for three years, but the U.S. invasion of Iraq has brought instability to the market. Venezuela is not interested in oil price hikes, and on the contrary, it hopes to see prices stabilize and that the U.S. economic crisis does not worsen. 'May they leave that situation quickly, but they will obviously have to revise their economic policies, which have affected the whole world so much,' he said.