"I think that anyone who claims that the United States is trying to get cheap oil, or free oil, by invading Iraq is foolish," Carter told a news conference on the eve of the Nobel awards ceremony here.

"We can buy oil, at a reasonable price of about 27 dollars (euros) a barrel, much less expensively than we can invade a country with its enormous cost," he said.

"There are many sources of oil in the world, from Russia, from Nigeria, from Venezuela, from Mexico, from Canada, from our own supplies in Alaska, and I don't think that any reasonable American citizen, certainly not our leaders, would have that as a pre-eminent or over-riding consideration," he said.

"I know my country, I know my people, and I assure you that's not a policy of my country," he said.

According to a recent survey published by the New York Times, most Europeans believe that any war with Iraq would be waged for control of that country's oil reserves, but only a minority of Americans concur.

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