Bring Home Dollars from Oil Rich Iraq

Should Iraqi Oil money be used to pay back the US for blood and treasure spilt on Iraqi sands?

Since OIL MONEY returned to Iraq, following its flow has been an exercise in frustration. Those plentiful dinars were supposed to bring succor to Iraqis weary of war and deprivation, and were promised to ease the strain on the U.S. pocketbook.

The money has done neither.

Whether siphoned off the pipelines, shoved deep in a pocket or sliced off the top, billions of dollars that were supposed to rebuild Iraq have simply disappeared.

In their place, America has been forced to prop up Iraq and its government with billions of dollars that could have - and should have - been spent on pressing needs closer to home.
Sen. John Warner wants to know why. With Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, he has sent a letter to the top official at the U.S. Government Accountability Office, asking where all the money has gone.

Corruption in Iraq is nothing new. Neither is poverty.

But at a time when Americans are paying $3.25 for a gallon of gas, when oil is at the record price of $108 a barrel, patience with Iraq's oil accounting problems has grown vanishingly thin.
It grows thinner with news that the country's oil revenues were over $41 billion last year, and are on track to reach $56 billion this year, or that U.S. expenditures in Iraq total more than $200 million each and every day.

"In fact," reads the letter, "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.... (T)he Iraqi Government is not doing nearly enough to provide essential services and improve the quality of life of its citizens."