Mar 09 2008
Time for Iraq to Start Paying Its Way
When this administration decided to invade, I mean liberate, Iraq they assured the American people that the war would be could be funded with revenue gained from Iraqi oil revenue. They also said we’d be welcomed with flowers and adoration from an oppressed population. Now, years later, we have discovered that the entire cost of this misguided adventure has broken the back of the American taxpayers. We’ve spent billions in Iraq that should have been invested in bettering our own futures. Now two senators, Carl Levin, D-Michigan, and John Warner, R-Virginia are finally asking, “where is the money?”
The senators want to know when the Iraqi government is going to begin financing its own reconstruction. When we went into Iraq and ousted Saddam Hussein we also destroyed that country’s infrastructure and leveled its cities and towns. It is reasonable we should shoulder some of the expense of reconstruction, but not all of it. We helped the people of Iraq throw off the mantle of oppression and terror that had been Hussein’s administration. They are better off for that, yet their country still suffers from a lack of basic necessities. Necessities that their own government should be providing.
“We believe that it has been overwhelmingly U.S. taxpayer money that has funded Iraq reconstruction over the last five years, despite Iraq earning billions of dollars in oil revenue over that time period that have ended up in non-Iraqi banks,” wrote the senators, who are their party’s top members on the Armed Services Committee.
The senators cited testimony of then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz who told a House subcommittee in March 2003 that the U.S. would not foot the entire bill for rebuilding Iraq. Wolfowitz predicted then that Iraq’s oil revenues could reach between $50 billion and $100 billion in the next two or three years.
“We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon,” Wolfowitz said in 2003. (Source: CNN)
Now here it is 2008 and Iraq is still broken. Their own government, in spite of tremendous oil revenues, has avoided contributing to the country’s reconstruction. Where is the money going?
“Our conversations with both Iraqis and Americans during our frequent visits to Iraq, as well as official government and unofficial media reports, have convinced us that the Iraqi government is not doing nearly enough to provide essential services and improve the quality of life of its citizens.”
Iraq’s ability to spend its $10.1 billion capital projects budget in 2007 was one of the 18 benchmarks used to assess U.S. progress in stabilizing and rebuilding Iraq, according to the GAO.
The United States has spent more than $47 billion on Iraqi reconstruction efforts since 2003, according to the 2008 quarterly audit by the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.
The senators are right, it is time for an accounting. We’ve borne the burden in blood and money for too long. According to the Iraqi’s themselves:
The report predicts average daily production will reach 2.692 million bpd by 2010, with exports at 2.217 million bpd. Such oil sales would continue to bring in the tens of billions of dollars — especially at today’s oil prices — which fund nearly the entire Iraqi federal budget. (Source: UPI)
Iraq has been dragging its feet. As long as someone else is willing to do for them, what they should be doing for themselves, they are satisfied and in no hurry to help themselves out. Until they step up to the plate and begin financing their own reconstruction they are going to be a burden on the rest of the international community. They are in effect a welfare nation, unwilling to contribute to their own wellbeing.
I believe a big part of this war was to establish military bases close to Iran, Iran has become a threat but mainly due to our removing the only military competition in the area, ie; Saddam Hussein. Without our presence there, Iran is truly the big bully on the block and only need the chance to take over the region, oil production etc. But on the other hand we have some serious problems with a crooked Iraqi government (that we established) they will continue to steal as much money as they can get away with, and then bail out when its time to step up. Trusting that these people have the same values and character as Americans is a big mistake, in a free election they will allways vote for the mulla that promises the most virgins, they are infact muslims and whould choose Iranian rule over American influence any day. Its time for us to control the oil and the money untill our bases are completed (with nukes installed) and recover some of the debt of this war, then if they want our help they can ask for it “and pay for it”.
What the United States has pulled off in Iraq is a 21st century version of the old colonial take-over of a weak and vulnerable country for its natural resources by a powerful nation which felt entitled to do so by virtue of its own might and military advancement. There never were any plans to pull out of Iraq nor were there any plans for eventual control over these resouces to be handed back to the Iraqis. What further proof of US intentions are needed than the enormous embassy under construction and the permanent military bases being readied for the occupation of an army which John McCain says may be there for 100 years?
If Iraq has been reduced to a welfare nation, they are are not getting much in the way of even minimal welfare from its invaders. Conditions have continuously degenerated since Bush declared “Mission Accomplished” with this ill-fated people reduced to living under the most inhumane and degraded conditions. Figures for the homeless and disenfranchised Iraqis in squalid refugee camps or wandering about over the war-torn terrain without financial aid or a home to return to are varied, but average at least 1 million. Unemployment is almost universal. Those who managed to find refuge in small surrounding countries are numbered into the millions. This country has offered refuge to less than 1,000 of these refugees to date.
The United States and its coalition friends are responsible for the deplorable condition of Iraq, a nation that had the misfortune to have the oil the Bush Administration so coveted that it lied and manipulated it way into creating this hellish situation. We have no intention of leaving Iraq in the forseeable future nor are we likely to restore what we have so wantonly destroyed.
I think it was on the NBC Nightly News that the reason Iraq’s oil isn’t paying for the Iraq war is because the Iraqis are stealing the oil at the rate of ONE BILLION BARRELS OF OIL PER WEEK!!!!
As in dollars, one billion is a lot of whatever is being counted.
My question is: What do you want to bet that the oil is loaded into tankers bearing the logo of Exxon-Mobi, Shell and BP.
Bush-Cheney would put a stop to it if one barrell came up short that did not go out under their watch. l i