The Iraq oil-for-IEDs program

Remember when we were told that Iraq’s oil revenue would pay for most of the reconstruction costs? Not only is that not happening, some oil money in Iraq is going to fund the insurgency. The New York Times reported: "In one example, a sitting member of the Iraqi National Assembly has been indicted in the theft of millions of dollars meant for protecting a critical oil pipeline against attacks and is suspected of funneling some of that money to the insurgency."
Posted by Phillip Brownlee

7 Comments

  1. Galahad Sir or Something
    Posted February 7, 2006 at 5:08 am | Permalink

    Corruption? In a third world country? Oh, what a surprise!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  2. ProudLiberal
    Posted February 7, 2006 at 11:34 am | Permalink

    Right you are, Galahad-troll.

    This is exactly what happened in Vietnam when we interposed ourselves into another no-win situation.

    Free-enterprise meant free to steal whatever you can because you never know when you’re going to have to bail.

    So, you’re right, Galahad-troll, there’s no surprise there.

    What is surprising is why the US keeps doing the same thing and hoping for a different outcome.

  3. ProudLiberal
    Posted February 7, 2006 at 11:47 am | Permalink

    I’d like to ask the conservatives if the 3,000 dollars their family has spent killing Iraqi civilians, fomenting civil war, and aiding terrorism has been worth it.

    WAR HAS COST EVERY FAMILY IN AMERICA 3000 DOLLARS–SO FAR

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucrr/20060203/cm_ucrr/iraqscivilwarhascost3000perusfamilysofar

    Clip:”If you remember, the White House’s own economic adviser, Lawrence Lindsey, was fired for predicting, in September 2002, six months before the invasion, that the total cost of the war might reach between $100 billion and $200 billion. What I (and perhaps others who questioned the wisdom of the war before it began) remember is the hundreds of e-mails and letters I received after I quoted Lindsey and used the higher figure as more likely. “Moron” and “traitor” were among the more polite epithets of the day.

    “But the exact figures are not the issue. The Washington issue is that the Bush administration has been lying from day one about the cost of this “preventative” war of choice. The original White House estimate of the total war cost was $75 billion, including the destruction of all Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction.” Undersecretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, whose fiscal acumen won him the presidency of the World Bank, even offered the theory that the war would be self-financing, paid for by Iraq’s oil production. That’s rich. And so are oil producers everywhere.

    “The war, in fact, is a factor in the escalating cost of petroleum products here and everywhere else in the world. Leaving that aside as you watch the gas-pump digits rise to Super Bowl numbers this weekend, two anti-war research institutes, the International Relations Center and the Institute for Policy Studies, estimate that the war’s cost per citizen has reached $727 — or close to $3,000 for a family of four. By the end of this year, those figures should reach about $1,300 per citizen, or more than $5,000 for that family of four.”

  4. TRACY
    Posted February 7, 2006 at 12:47 pm | Permalink

    Of course nobody is surprised.Why should Cheney and friends be the only ones getting a big fat bank account out of this.At least the member of the Iraqi National Assembly is screwing his own country.

  5. ProudLiberal
    Posted February 7, 2006 at 6:59 pm | Permalink

    Conservatives are awfully quiet on this one, aren’t they?

    Now that Enron, Tyco, Westar, MCI, Arthur Anderson, Halliburton, Bechtold, Brown and Root have all shown how to steal from the government trough, it’s good to see that Iraq is getting more like America . . .

  6. brown
    Posted February 7, 2006 at 9:39 pm | Permalink

    Does this mean we are paying for both sides of the war? It looks like our president and his cronies may be guilty of (gasp) war profiteering? Well, somebody is making a boatload of cash and it sure isn’t me.

  7. ProudLiberal
    Posted February 8, 2006 at 7:22 pm | Permalink

    Oh, conservatives?! Woo hoo?!

    Where are you on another botched job by the Worst. President. Ever?