This is such an obvious direction to go, I have to ask, why has it taken so long for someone to take this position. Imagine, Iraq using it's own money to rebuild the country.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8VUB9AO3&show_article=1

The only compliant I have is that it doesn't go far enough. They should also be paying for our "police protection" with their oil money.

GOP leadership promised us up front that this is what would happen but have not delivered.

And, what a perspective it is to hear that we are spending $153 million per month JUST ON GAS!

What a waste. How many kids could go to college on that money? How many people could be covered under health insurance?

"The only compliant I have is that it doesn't go far enough. They should also be paying for our "police protection" with their oil money"

I think many agree with that notion, Deane, however the power of the veto pen limits the extent to which Congress, even on a bipartisan basis, can successfully legislate a mandate to be imposed on the Iraqi government. I personally think the ghost in this machine is the fact that the Iraqi government knows that they can refuse without losing the level of military support keeping the peace so long as the shrub remains C.I.C. Dubya just doesn't have the desire to put the Iraqi government's feet to the fire. Some of us have called this a lack of an exit strategy.

So now the demo's want to turn the US military into a mercenary force. Make the US military a for hire . Hey it could make money, someone has problems with their neighbors, go to the Dem's and cut a deal to hire the US military.

Forcing Iraq to pay to rebuild does not mean our military are mercenaries. Nwokie, why do you always to spin arguments against Democrats.

What is wrong with having Iraq pay for its own rebuilding?

Iraq is milking it and some body is getting rich off of our taxpayer dollars while people die. And we want more of this with McCain? If McCain supports the war this November as he does now, he will lose. Guaranteed. This will be a vote for or against war in Iraq. The numbers don't look good for McSame.

White flags up, hands in the air, ready march, we have a Democrat in the White House.

Middle fingers up, heads in the sand, ready march, we have John McSame in the White House.

Using Iraq's oil money to pay for our occupation is a great plan, the only problem is that it's already being stolen by Bush's cronies!

"Using Iraq's oil money to pay for our occupation is a great plan, the only problem is that it's already being stolen by Bush's cronies!"

Don't refer to "Bush cronies". Give us names and situations. What are you talking about?

"Middle fingers up, heads in the sand, ready march, we have John McSame in the White House."

Perfect, Vit, but you forgot to add "and possibly Die" after "March".

The US commits troops, only when it is in the US's national interest to do it. Putting a financial means test on an area is absurd.

Did we ask Britian and France to pay for US troops in WWII, when France sent troops and money to assist the US in our revolution , did they ask we pay?

Give us names and situations. What are you talking about?

I am guessing he is talking about the Coalition Provisional Authority, Deane.

The 15-month proconsulship of the CPA disbursed nearly $20 billion, two-thirds of it in cash, most of which came from the Development Fund for Iraq that had replaced the UN Oil for Food Program and from frozen and seized Iraqi assets. Most of the money was flown into Iraq on C-130s in huge plastic shrink-wrapped pallets holding 40 "cashpaks," each cashpak having $1.6 million in $100 bills. Twelve billion dollars moved that way between May 2003 and June 2004, drawn from accounts administered by the New York Federal Reserve Bank. The $100 bills weighed an estimated 363 tons.

Once in Iraq, there was virtually no accountability over how the money was spent. There was also considerable money "off the books," including as much as $4 billion from illegal oil exports. The CPA and the Iraqi State Oil Marketing Board, which it controlled, made a deliberate decision not to record or "meter" oil exports, an invitation to wholesale fraud and black marketeering.

Thus the country was awash in unaccountable money. British sources report that the CPA contracts that were not handed out to cronies were sold to the highest bidder, with bribes as high as $300,000 being demanded for particularly lucrative reconstruction contracts.

The contracts were especially attractive because no work or results were necessarily expected in return. It became popular to cancel contracts without penalty, claiming that security costs were making it too difficult to do the work. A $500 million power-plant contract was reportedly awarded to a bidder based on a proposal one page long. After a joint commission rejected the proposal, its members were replaced by the minister, and approval was duly obtained. But no plant has been built.

Where contracts are actually performed, their nominal cost is inflated sufficiently to provide handsome bribes for everyone involved in the process. Bribes paid to government ministers reportedly exceed $10 million.

Money also disappeared in truckloads and by helicopter. The CPA reportedly distributed funds to contractors in bags off the back of a truck. In one notorious incident in April 2004, $1.5 billion in cash that had just been delivered by three Blackhawk helicopters was handed over to a courier in Erbil, in the Kurdish region, never to be seen again. Afterwards, no one was able to recall the courier's name or provide a good description of him.

Paul Bremer, meanwhile, had a slush fund in cash of more than $600 million in his office for which there was no paperwork. One U.S. contractor received $2 million in a duffel bag. Three-quarters of a million dollars was stolen from an office safe, and a U.S. official was given $7 million in cash in the waning days of the CPA and told to spend it "before the Iraqis take over." Nearly $5 billion was shipped from New York in the last month of the CPA. Sources suggest that a deliberate attempt was being made to run down the balance and spend the money while the CPA still had authority and before an Iraqi government could be formed.

The only certified public-accounting firm used by the CPA to monitor its spending was a company called North Star Consultants, located in San Diego, which was so small that it operated out of a private home. It was subsequently determined that North Star did not, in fact, perform any review of the CPA's internal spending controls. Today, no one can account for billions of those dollars or even suggest how the money was spent. And as the CPA no longer exists, there is also little interest in re-examining its transparency or accountability.

American Conservative

LS, I don't question any of that, but I don't see a single "Bush cronie's" name in the post.

LMAO.

OK.

You could take the time to read the whole article and find many more gems like these:

Halliburton, Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, has a no-bid monopoly contract with the Army Corps of Engineers that is now estimated to be worth $10 billion. In June 2005, Pentagon contracting officer Bunny Greenhouse told a congressional committee that the agreement was the "most blatant and improper contracting abuse" that she had ever witnessed, a frank assessment that subsequently earned her a demotion.

Halliburton has frequently been questioned over its poor record keeping, and critics claim that it has a history of overcharging for its services. In May 1967, a company called RMK/BRJ could not account for $120 million in materiel sent to Vietnam and was investigated several times for overcharging on fuel. RMK/BRJ is now known as KBR or Kellogg, Brown and Root, the Halliburton subsidiary that has been the focus of congressional, Department of Defense, and General Accountability Office investigations. Defense Contract Audit Agency auditors have questioned Halliburton's charges on a $1.6 billion fuel contract, claiming that the overcharges on the contract exceed $200 million. In one instance, the company charged the Army more than $27 million to transport $82,000 worth of fuel from Kuwait to Iraq. Halliburton has also been accused of billing the Army for 42,000 daily meals for soldiers, though it was only actually serving 14,000. In another operation, KBR purchased fleets of Mercedes trucks at $85,000 each to re-supply U.S. troops. The trucks carried no spare parts or even extra tires for the grueling high-speed run across the Kuwaiti and Iraqi deserts. When the trucks broke down on the highway, they were abandoned and destroyed rather than repaired.

Responding to complaints, Halliburton refused to permit independent auditing and inspected itself using so-called "Tiger Teams." One such team stayed at the five-star Kuwait Kempinski Hotel while it was doing its audit, running up a bill of more than $1 million that was passed on to U.S. taxpayers.

Another U.S. firm well connected to the Bush White House, Custer Battles, has provided security services to the coalition, receiving $11 million in Iraqi funds including $4 million in cash in a sole-source contract to supply security at Baghdad International Airport. The company had never provided airport security before receiving the contract. It also received a $21 million no-bid contract to provide security for the exchange of Iraqi currency. It has been alleged that much of the currency "replaced" by Custer Battles has never been accounted for. The company also allegedly took over abandoned Iraqi-owned forklifts at the airport, repainted them, and then leased them back to the airport authority through a company set up in the Cayman Islands. Custer Battles reportedly set up a number of shell companies in offshore tax havens in Lebanon, Cyprus, and the Cayman Islands to handle the cash flow.

American Conservative

If this is true, where is the Congressional investigation and prosecution. The Democrats have certainly never been shy about looking for some way to hang Bush.

Do you believe it to be true or not?

!?!

Welcome to the realization most of US have had for the last 4 years or so.

I strongly encourage you to seek a more complete answer to that question. All of it has been out, on this forum, and in the news. The truth is out there Deane. Literally! You just gotta set the dogma aside. (and I'm using that loosely, not with any particular religious connotation)



Then you can vote Democrat like most of us are going to. Ideally, that's Obama.

Need names?

Granted, the article is from 2003 when bids were first going out, and it's from The Village Voice, but it was the first thing that popped up when Googling "Bush Friends Getting rich war"

Daddy Warbucks
Bush Pals Get Rich Off Iraq
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0312,mondo1,42683,6.html

The usuals:
Halliburton/KBR->Cheney
Bechtel
Blackwater
Fluor: This corporation gave $483,000 to pols. Kenneth Oscar, the firm's VP for strategy and government services, recently was acting assistant secretary of the army, which has a $35 billion procurement budget.

More:
http://tvnewslies.org/html/kept_promises.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/04/25/60minutes/main551091.shtml
http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/

CJ asked " Do you believe it to be true or not? "

Deane will say " I have no idea." But he does have an idea. He's gone from " Don't use general, blanket accusations. I want to see names." Implying that he'd then give it credibility. Then he's shown names. So then Deane says " I don't see any names." So he's shown them again. When he can no longer deny that he has been shown names, he now shifts to " Well if was true, there would be a lawsuit or something. Since there isn't a lawsuit - it's not true."

This is why Deane doesn't like to go on record with anything; He knows that it is easy to disprove when he implys, suggests or outright says. He can't do anything but distract.

Americans are VERY sick of that kind of mindset Deane.

So next he will shift the topic and never concede that he even MIGHT be on the wrong side of this topic ( not that we'd know because he will never actually commit to a side for fear of being proven wrong. And he equates that with somehow being smart or something - again, I wouldn't know because after 1000 times of asking him why or how or when, he falls asleep ).

I'm trying to think of where the next level of denial or distraction will take us with Deane. I'll guess something like " You don't get it."

Deane can't handle the truth even when it's layed out in front of her.....
EXTREME RIGHTIES are a hard lay.... And don't like the truth.

"where is the Congressional investigation and prosecution?"

Here! (With NAMES even):

List of Senators voting against independent committee hearing into contractor fraud in Iraq:

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?con gress=109&session=1&vote=00316

"To establish a special committee of the Senate to investigate the awarding and carrying out of contracts to conduct activities in Afghanistan and Iraq and to fight the war on terrorism"

YEAs 44
NAYs 53
Not Voting 3

Oregon:
Smith (R-OR), Nay
Wyden (D-OR), Yea

Washington:
Cantwell (D-WA), Yea
Murray (D-WA), Yea

Idaho:
Craig (R-ID), Nay
Crapo (R-ID), Nay

McCain Nay
Clinton Yea
Obama Yea

Mrs. M...
It isn't going to matter to the likes of Deane, Nwokie, Broadway or Herb to know the truth. It's just too much for them.

Nwokie, watch the John Adams miniseries.

The French supported is against the British to a limited degree, but would not give us what we really needed to fight with.

Britain and France did not have any money during WWII and little even after. We even had to pay them to build up their countries. If they had money then, we would have let them pay their own way.

Iraq has the money.

These are not rhetorical questions. Nor are they loaded. I have made a few assumptions ( or just never asked myself is more accurate ) that are being proven wrong;

I don't know what I was thinking, but I honestly didn't, and still don't know, that Iraq has any oil revenues. Are these revenues that came from pre-2003 invasion sales? Or, and I really want to know this - Are there revenues being generated even today? The press doesn't exactly showcase their ability to drill for, pipe through and load onto a tanker for sale. Is that happening? To what degree is that happening as compared to years past? Say - past 10 years? I do not picture an Iraq that is so stable to do that - yet is so unstable that we can't leave. Someone please try and explain that disconnect to me.

Next question; If they are not using their oil revenue to contribute towards rebuilding, then what ARE they using it for? Seriously. What is happening to the money? Who is controlling it and making those decisions?

Next question; How do we, as Americans, have any authority to FORCE them to contribute? Not on some intangible moral ground - but in the strictest legal sense. How does what WE decide they should do, get enforced? Is it just some kind of " threat " that if they don't, we will...do what exactly? Again, that's NOT rhetorical. What exactly can we force them to do?

In a tragic way, this very issue may be they very thing that helps us walk out with dignity; If they want so much ( and even that is questionable ) but if they do, what leg could they possibly have to stand on to say " No. We decline...but you ( The US ) need to stay and clean up everything on your dime."

I think we were sheepish to ask for financial help. But as we get declined or ignored at every request, pretty soon we become legitimately offended at that kind of refusal. You can table the poitics of going into the war to begin with, and all the other things we've ever discussed around here. But to get ZERO help from Iraq is beginning ( yet again ) to show where they really stand. If the citizens of Iraq say that they want what they say they want, then why do they not seem very willing to at upon it? In ANY other situation, we would have had a million times less patience.

It's all running out.

Good luck with your genocide, Iraq. It's not like we didn't try and help you avoid it. But hey, you've got oil revenues. Go ahead and keep it. C ya.

I'm not so sure I disagree with that.

If, the multi-nationals are kept out of the picture, the Iraqi people will unify around their oil.

It's all in the numbers. Either it will be worth fighting over, or as the numbers fall, it won't, or somebody else will move in and handle it.

With us in the mix, all we are really doing is preventing somebody else from moving in. That's "our OIL" because "we fought for it".

Really, it's Iraqi oil, if they can step up and get through enough of their issues to leverage it.

So funny that the EXTREMEIES hide when truth is introduced.

Well, we can talk rationally about Iraq because we don't have any real agenda that's tied to the damn thing.

A lot of pro-lifers will support Republicans right now, because that's their court ticket, for example. Doing that means carrying a lot of baggage, and having to go along with a lot of spin. Makes having a nice conversation difficult.

Really, that's why there is silence on this topic.

It's not that we know so much. We don't. We can just talk about it though, and that's good.

The French aided us in our Revolution, because it was in their national interest to bleed off some British strength, if by sending a few ships, men and money they could pin down some of the British in an unending war, it was to their benefit. I doubt they thought Washington could really beat the British. But thanks to Von Steuben the US was able to field a well trained and equiped army to defeat the British. It wasn't a rag tag army by then.

We helped the British, russians etc in WWII, because it was in our best interest.

We are in Iraq now, because we don;t want an Iranian dominated region.

It wouldn't have been, had we not opened up the door.

We are in Iraq right now because we wanted the oil and wanted to beat up on Saddam. He's dead now, so mission accomplished there.

The oil is a strike however. We are not there yet, and that's why we are still there.

Remember WHY we started this, and WHO did it.

Now it is about Iran and oil, but it's also Republicans that got us here.

We are in Iraq, because a Hussin lead Iraq was a threat to US vital interests.

Yeah because he was going to trade oil in Euros, not because he had WMDs.

Republicans lied to us about that.

Yeah. Trade routes.

"We are in Iraq, because a Hussin lead Iraq was a threat to US vital interests."

And his country was swimming on a sea of oil.

We are in Iraq because Bush tried to outdo his dad. It's that simple.

How many times are the EXTREME RIGHTIES going to change their minds on why we went into Iraq?
FLIP FLOP!