Can Iraq Start Paying Us Back Now?
Remember the Republican promises of 2002 and 2003? Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz testified before Congress that the American people would not lose any money on the proposed invasion of Iraq. The war would pay for itself, he said, because Iraq would be so grateful for its liberation that it would give the United States its oil revenues, which would more than compensate for any expense.
Republicans across America, both in and out of government, repeated Wolfowitz’s promise. That didn’t make the promise a reality, however. The American people have now lost more than a half a trillion dollars on the Iraq War, and the government of Iraq hasn’t given any money from its oil revenues back to us.
Well, the Government Accountability Office has just released a report indicating that the government of Iraq has had a budget surplus for a few years now. At the same time, the United States has a record breaking budget deficit.
That Iraqi budget surplus just keeps on growing and growing. The GAO estimates that the Iraqi surplus will be “between $38.2 billion to $50.3 billion.”
So, when can we expect to see some of that money from the Iraqis to help pay for the cost of the war?
It will never happen. In fact, we’ll be lucky if they don’t turn around and sue us for even more money for war crimes, breech of contract (what ever happened to all those reconstruction projects we paid all those billions for?) and the Blackwater misdeeds, among others.