Before the invasion of Iraq, various neo-cons suggested that the war
would be quick, easy, and above all, cheap.

These days they tend to deny that they ever suggested such a thing,
but I'm afraid the record speaks for itself:
http://www.house.gov/schakowsky/iraqquotes_web.htm


"Well, the reconstruction costs remain a very - an issue for the
future. And Iraq, unlike Afghanistan, is a rather wealthy country.
Iraq has tremendous resources that belong to the Iraqi people. And so
there are a variety of means that Iraq has to be able to shoulder much
of the burden for their own reconstruction." - Ari Fleischer

"This is not Afghanistan... When we approach the question of Iraq, we
realize here is a country which has a resource. And it's obvious, it's
oil. And it can bring in and does bring in a certain amount of revenue
each year... $10, $15, even $18 billion... this is not a broke
country." - Richard Armitage

"There's a lot of money to pay for this that doesn't have to be U.S.
taxpayer money, and it starts with the assets of the Iraqi people...
and on a rough recollection, the oil revenues of that country could
bring between $50 and $100 billion over the course of the next two or
three years... We're dealing with a country that can really finance
its own reconstruction, and relatively soon." - Paul Wolfowitz

"If you (worry about just) the cost, the money, Iraq is a very
different situation from Afghanistan... Iraq has oil. They have
financial resources." - Donald Rumsfeld

"On the resource side, Iraq itself will rightly shoulder much of the
responsibilities. Among the sources of revenue available are $1.7
billion in invested Iraqi assets, the found assets in Iraq... and
unallocated oil-for-food money that will be deposited in the
development fund." - Alan Larson

"I don't believe that the United States has the responsibility for
reconstruction, in a sense... (Reconstruction) funds can come from
those various sources I mentioned: frozen assets, oil revenues and a
variety of other things, including the Oil for Food, which has a very
substantial number of billions of dollars in it. - Donald Rumsfeld


So how's that working out?

Well, the New York Times reported last week that:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/12/world/middleeast/12oil.html?ex=1336622400&en
=034ced4a02a3dcd3&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss


Between 100,000 and 300,000 barrels a day of Iraq's declared oil
production over the past four years is unaccounted for and could have
been siphoned off through corruption or smuggling, according to a
draft American government report.

Using an average of $50 a barrel, the report said the discrepancy was
valued at $5 million to $15 million daily.

(snip)

Iraqi and American officials have previously said that smuggling of
refined products like gasoline and kerosene is probably costing Iraq
billions of dollars a year in lost revenues.

The smuggling of those products is particularly feared because
officials believe that a large fraction of the proceeds go to
insurgent groups.

(snip)

Adding together both civilian and military financing, the report
concludes that the United States has spent $5.1 billion of the $7.4
billion in American taxpayer money set aside to rebuild the Iraqi
electricity and oil sectors.

The United States has also spent $3.8 billion of Iraqi money on those
sectors, the report says.

Despite those enormous expenditures, the performance is far short of
official goals, and in some cases seems to be declining further.


So let's see... the Bush administration has spent $5 billion of U.S.
taxpayer dollars to rebuild the Iraqi oil sector, and the result is
that an estimated 300 million barrels of oil have gone missing,
putting millions of dollars into the hands of insurgents who are using
the funds to kill American troops.

Way to go!

But just out of curiosity, how come we don't know exactly how much oil
is being stolen?


Mr. Ebel said the lack of modern metering equipment, or measuring
devices, at Iraq's wellheads made it especially difficult to track
smuggling there.

The State Department official agreed that there were no meters at the
wellheads, but said that Iraq's Oil Ministry had signed a contract
with Shell Oil to study the possibility of putting in the meters.


Well I guess they've only had four years to get that sorted out.

No rush.


By EarlG
Democratic Underground
http://www.democraticunderground.com/

Harry

should have been watching his hands.
T>he object of the war is NOT what he SAYS: the object of the war was,
has been, and IS -- to transfer the contents of the U.S. Treasury to
his supporters, the war profiteers; to enhance his "Unitary" powers,
and to dominate the oil resources of the middle east.
ALL THE REST IS MISDIRECTION -- SMOKE AND MIRRORS.
THE PEA WAS NEVER UNDER THE SHELL.. GET IT?
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