"America has hardly even begun to repay its debt to Iraq."
--Abdul Basit, the head of Iraq's Supreme Board of Audit
With another massive Iraq war funding bill now before Congress, it has become popular among Republicans and Democrats alike to take Iraq to task for not using enough of its burgeoning oil revenue for reconstruction projects. Senator Collins joined that fray in front-page stories last month, insisting that the "free ride" for Iraq should be over.
Good thing I listen to the podcast of Harry Shearer's Le Show. Otherwise, I would not have caught this significant story, which last week evidently made it no further than the Chicago Tribune:
Iraq: U.S. has no claim to oil boom
By Liz Sly - Tribune correspondent - May 1, 2008
BAGHDAD — As Congress gears up to debate the Bush administration's latest request for an additional $108 billion in war funding for Iraq and Afghanistan, Iraqis are fuming at suggestions being floated by lawmakers that Baghdad should start paying a share of the war's costs by providing cheap fuel to the U.S. military.The Tribune article goes on to review the staggering history of corruption under American auspices, "Behind the controversy lies a giant muddle of misspending, waste, corruption and poor accounting on the part of both Iraq and the U.S. surrounding about $100 billion worth of spending on reconstruction and the Iraqi security forces that has barely dented Iraq's needs over the past five years."
"America has hardly even begun to repay its debt to Iraq," said Abdul Basit, the head of Iraq's Supreme Board of Audit, an independent body that oversees Iraqi government spending. "This is an immoral request because we didn't ask them to come to Iraq, and before they came in 2003 we didn't have all these needs."
The issue of Baghdad's contribution to the costs of the war jumped to the forefront early in April during testimony to Congress of the Iraq war commander, Gen. David Petraeus, and the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker. Noting that the soaring price of oil is likely to give Iraq a revenue bonanza this year of up to $70 billion, senators quizzed the two on why Iraq isn't using its rising oil income to pay more of the costs of reconstruction.
Iraqi and U.S. officials say they are. Iraqis acknowledge the need for Iraq to take on a greater share of its reconstruction costs and say it is doing so. In fact, according to the latest report released Wednesday by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, the body established by Congress to monitor reconstruction spending, Iraq is now responsible for the majority of the money spent on reconstruction and the Iraqi security forces.
Iraqis say the criticisms in Washington grossly simplify the complexities of Iraq's situation and fail to take into account the vastness of Iraq's needs....
U.S. Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction has some quibbles with Congresspeople like Collins and Michigan Democrat Carl Levin, who have made hay with the "Iraqis are not pulling their weight" line--"a bit overplayed," according to Bowen. Figures are presented that suggest Iraqi piking on their own reconstruction just is not the case.
The bottom line here is that people in Iraq have noticed America's arrogance. To them, people like Collins and Levin are heard to be manipulating American politics for American interests while using Iraq and it's oil as a pawn. But to me the truth is clear. America has destroyed Iraq. It's guts have been cut out to the point that, as Patrick Cockburn has described, the lakes of sewage are visible from outer space. The reconstruction projects our Congress bothers to discuss after its done funding the military operation (which works to further destroy the country) barely scratch the surface of what America owes the Iraqi people.
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