The Bush administration is responsible for the preemptive illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq based on lies.  And impeachment is still off the table.

 

Our country has become a debtor nation, in hock to foreign governments,  mired in a recession, where regular, hardworking Americans are hurting under the burden of an economic debacle, economic injustice and unfairness, with high food and energy prices and lack of affordable or any health care coverage which is a profit making industry in the US rather than a human right as it is in most other industrialized countries, as the rich and corporations get richer.

 

 

McClatchy News reports: "Iraq has benefited handsomely from this year's surge in oil prices and is well-positioned financially to shoulder a greater share of its own economic and security needs, the U.S. government's accounting watchdog concluded in a report released Tuesday.

"In its report on efforts to stabilize and reconstruct Iraq, the Government Accountability Office steered clear of the politics of who pays for what. But it left little doubt that Iraq, which racked up $32.9 billion in oil earnings from January through June, can afford to pay more for its own reconstruction.

"The GAO estimates that Iraq will earn $67 billion to $79 billion in oil sales this year, twice the average annual amount of revenue that it generated from oil sales from 2005 through 2007. This windfall comes despite the fact that Iraq is still struggling to approach pre-invasion oil-production levels.

"Record high oil prices mean that Iraq's government could post a budget surplus of more than $50 billion by year's end. From 2005 to 2007, oil exports provided 94 percent of the Iraqi government's revenues.

" 'This substantial increase in revenues offers the Iraqi government the potential to better finance its own security and finance needs,' the GAO said.

"The Iraqi government has run budget surpluses since 2005 that amounted to a cumulative $29.4 billion at the end of last year. Should oil prices remain high, Iraq could post a budget surplus for this year of $38.2 billion to $50.3 billion, GAO researchers concluded.

"However, investment spending by the Iraqi ministries that are responsible for oil, water and electricity declined sharply from 2005 to 2007. The GAO said that Oil Ministry spending fell by an annual rate of 92 percent, Electricity Ministry spending by 93 percent and Water Ministry spending by 13 percent. All three ministries affect Iraqi citizens' quality of life and thus support for the struggling elected government.

"While Iraq has amassed budget surpluses, the U.S. Congress has appropriated roughly $48 billion since 2003 for efforts to stabilize and reconstruct the invaded nation. As of this June, the GAO said, about $42 billion of that money had been spent.

"Just 1 percent of what Iraq spent from 2005 through 2007 went toward expenditures such as maintaining U.S.- and Iraqi-funded investment in buildings, water supplies and power-generation facilities.

Here is what the despicable, Bush regime neocon who championed the invasion and occupation of Iraq and later left as head of the World Bank following a scandal, stated before the invasion, also from McClatchy: " Before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz declared that Iraq's oil proceeds would cover the cost of the war and the expense of rebuilding the country after Saddam Hussein was removed from power.

"To assume we're going to pay for it all is just wrong," Wolfowitz told the House Budget Committee on Feb. 28, 2003."

However, the Bush regime has created a another big problem for the US with its illegal Iraq invasion.

It was the US under this administration that destroyed Iraq with an invasion based on blatant lies.  Iraqis living in Iraq did not invite us to invade their country and US troops were not greeted as liberators by the majority of the population, nor has a five year and counting occupation been popular, as over 4,000 US military deaths prove.

Perhaps the best solution is to give Iraq a fixed, fair amount of reparation money for destroying the country, taking into consideration Iraq's oil sales earnings,  to be paid for by taxing American oil companies for the huge profits they will make in Iraq from that country's oil. 

American troops should leave Iraq within a year or so, which can be done safely, and hundreds of billions of dollars that are being spent in Iraq can be put to work in the US for its people's benefit rather than being spent on our military occupation in Iraq.