Make Iraqis spend their oil money, not ours

By Weekly Archive On Apr 15, 2008

The
Iraq War dog-and-pony show’s back in town, with the same old tired
arguments for staying the course.

Gen.
David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker anesthetized Congress with
a "progress report" almost identical to the one they gave
last September. According to the duo, dubbed "the surge twins"
by Maureen Dowd, we’ve made some progress, but not enough; we can
bring home some troops, but not all; the surge is working, except
when it’s not. Yawn.

Even
after five years of war and one year of the surge, Petraeus had to
admit he saw "no light at the end of the tunnel" and no
possibility of bringing more troops home until at least September —
when conditions might allow further withdrawals, or might not. The
whole presentation had a kind of "Alice in Wonderland"
quality to it. As Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh summed it up: "We’ll
know when we get there, and we don’t know when we’re going to get
there."

Petraeus
and Crocker did succeed in one respect, however. They managed to run
out the clock for another eight months, thereby helping President
Bush achieve his number one goal in Iraq: keeping the war alive until
he can dump it in the lap of his successor. That’s all Bush asked of
Petraeus, and he delivered. "General, you did a heck of a job!"

Despite
their lackluster performance, at least one good idea did emerge from
Petraeus’ and Crocker’s appearance before Congress. It didn’t come
from them. It came from Democrats. And here it is: If we’re going to
stay in Iraq any longer, let the Iraqis pay for it — with their own
oil money. Allah knows they can afford it. In fact, they’ve got a
surplus, while we’re running a deficit. So why should we continue to
pick up the tab?

This
is not exactly a new idea. During the buildup to the Iraq war,
remember, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz assured Congress
that the entire cost of the operation would be paid for with Iraqi
oil revenues — without costing American taxpayers one dollar. Today,
at least $600 billion later, that’s just another one of George Bush’s
broken promises.

But
now the Iraqi oil fields are up and running, the pipelines are
repaired, the price of oil’s at an all-time high, and money’s pouring
into the Iraqi government’s coffers. In fact, according to Sen. Carl
Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Iraq has over
$30 billion squirreled away in U.S. banks, collecting interest, and
it could reap an additional $100 billion in oil profits from 2007 and
2008. Meanwhile, American taxpayers are not only paying for the cost
of the war, we’ve spent $47 billion so far on Iraq reconstruction.

Adding
insult to injury, American troops in Iraq are forced to buy gas on
the open market, paying $3.23 a gallon for gas in Baghdad that
they’ve sacrificed their lives to help deliver. Which means the
Pentagon’s spending $153 million a month in Iraq on fuel alone. Thus
does the Iraqi government show Americans its gratitude: by sticking
it to us at the pump.

Ironically,
even though over 4,000 Americans have died in Iraq, it may be the
cost in dollars, and not in lives, that in the end unites both
supporters and opponents of the war in demanding a change in
direction. Arch-conservative Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, a
cheerleader for the war from the beginning, told Petraeus and Crocker
it was way past time the Iraqis started to pay for their own
security. If they don’t, warned Rohrabacher, "There’s going to
be trouble on the Republican side, as well as the Democratic side, of
getting support for an ongoing conflict."

Enough’s
enough. Time to put all those Iraqi oil profits to good use. If we’re
going to be stuck in Iraq any longer, at least let the Iraqi
government pay for it. They can afford it. We can’t.

Bill
Press is host of a nationally syndicated radio show and author of a
new book, "How
the Republicans Stole Religion." You
can hear "The Bill Press Show" at billpressshow.com. His
email address is: bill@billpress.com. His Web site is:
www.billpress.com.