Economic analysts are pointing out the elephant in Iraq’s living room: Its struggling economy won’t improve until its security improves. “Until you can walk across the street without ducking, it will be hard to get the economy back,” David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor’s, told Associated Press. The economists also noticed that President Bush didn’t talk about Iraq’s oil situation in his speech last week about Iraq’s economy. Vice President Dick Cheney predicted that oil production would be between 3 million and 3.5 million barrels a day by the end of 2004, generating money that could finance most of the country’s reconstruction. Instead, production has hovered around 2 million barrels a day, below prewar output, according to the Brookings Institution.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
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21 Comments
The immediate withdrawal of American troops could only help matters, but Bush has no interest in helping matters. If he did, he wouldn’t have invaded Iraq to begin with. A sane president would not have done that or rushed into something which would cause so much death and destruction without carefully evaluating the evidence.
Sharon wanted this war for Israel and that was Bush’s only consideration.
I don’t think Bush is smart enough to have weighed all the possible consequences of invading Iraq. He’s certainly not smart enough to listen to the experts who are all smarter than him. This situation happened because there’s a moron at the helm.
That doesn’t explain Blair. He’s not that dumb. He was in on it, and Blair knows Bush is a moron. He had to talk Bush out of bombing a TV station, which is respected worldwide.
Maybe Bush was jealous.
And this is the guy that Pat Robertson wanted to have killed?
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/13386277.htm
G. W. Bush was very depressed that people were saying he is stupid. So he calls his good friend Queen Elizabeth, who says, “Now George, what you need to do is to surround yourself with smart people. Let me show you.”
She conference calls Tony Blair in and asks, “Tony, your parents had a baby. It isn’t your sister and it isn’t your brother. Who is it?”
Tony Blair replies, “It’s me!” and hangs up.
G.W. Bush then calls Dick Cheney and says, “Dick, your parents had a baby. It isn’t your sister and it isn’t your brother. Who is it?”
And Cheney says, “Wow, that’s a tough one. Let me get back to you.”
So Cheney calls Colin Powell and says, “Colin, your parents had a baby.
It isn’t your sister and it isn’t your brother. Who is it?”
And Colin Powell says, “It’s me!”
So Cheney calls Bush and says, “It’s Colin Powell.”
And Bush says, “No, you idiot! It’s Tony Blair!”
Is Bush stealing oil?
$US 3 billion in Iraqi oil export revenues has gone missing.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/testdir/jul2004/iraq-j21.shtml
Right, so considering what Cheney said before the war, we can now see that what Rumsfilled said on The News Hour on Thursday, 8 DecDONALD RUMSFELD: “I don’t know anybody who had any reasonable expectations about the number or the length of the war or the cost of the war. I just don’t — no one I know went out and said these are how those three metrics ought to be considered” IS A BLATANT LIE.
Here’s a walmart funny {economy}
http://movies.msn.com/movies/JibJab
Great link, Ed. I guess we need to laugh in order not to cry!
Sometimes it helps.
Security in Iraq is impossible until the economy improves, and economic growth is impossible without security- a damn vicious circle, with no quick fix. Either we stay, and become the enemy that unites the opposition forces, or we leave, and watch Iraq collapse into civil war.Either way, it’ll be a long time before we get any of the oil that will pull Bush’s nuts out of the fire with his ultra-rich supporters.
Iraq will settle down if we leave. That is not what the warmongers want, but a wound can’t heal until you stop picking at the scab.
Not one more soldier should give-up his life or limb, because Ariel Sharon made 10 trips to the White House giving instructions to “his boys.”
And you can bet your boots that is exactly what happened.
They’re now planning attacks on Iran, Syria, and Lebanon.
Russia is backing Iran.
All this must be stopped.
“Vice President Dick Cheney predicted that oil production would be between 3 million and 3.5 million barrels a day by the end of 2004, generating money that could finance most of the country’s reconstruction. Instead, production has hovered around 2 million barrels a day, below prewar output, according to the Brookings Institution.”
Yeah, but it’s OUR OIL, dammit.
That’s the difference, and don’t anybody forget it.
Even if Cheney was right in his predictions of oil revenues, does it make it all right to blow a country and many of it’s people to hell if they’ve got resources to rebuild? Would he think arson was justified if someone burnt down his house with his family in it, because he had fire insurance? This administration ran on the grounds that they would restore morality to the nation. How can they do that if they have no morals of their own?
Amen!!
Regarding the hell of daily Iraqi life, someone mentioned Raed in the Middle earlier (I think it was XXX). I would also recommend Riverbend, a 26-year-old computer engineer in Baghdad:
http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com
or, for a slightly more sardonic view, the original Baghdad blogger, Salam Pax, who also writes occasionally for the Guardian:
http://justzipit.blogspot.com
Who cares? It aint your oil? The American boys won it for me and my dad and my family and VP Dick and his daughter! It’s our oil and we can do what we want with it! Do you have any oil? Then how would you know?
Dubya!
Testing, testing; is this thing on?
CF, I think it’s broke!
wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwno, it Works! quite Well too!
W.
CF,Saw your post on Eschaton. Way to go!