Former Dep. Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz, in 2003:
“There’s a lot of money to pay for this that doesn’t
have to be U.S. taxpayer money, and it starts with the assets of the Iraqi
people…and on a rough recollection, the oil revenues of that country could bring
between $50 and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years…We’re
dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and
relatively soon.”
Present Day: Billions in Oil Missing in Iraq, U.S. Study Finds
Between 100,000 and 300,000 barrels a day of Iraq’s declared oil production over the past four years is unaccounted for and could have been siphoned off through corruption or smuggling, according to a draft American government report.
Using an average of $50 a barrel, the report said the discrepancy was valued at $5 million to $15 million daily.
The report does not give a final conclusion on what happened to the missing fraction of the roughly two million barrels pumped by Iraq each day, but the findings are sure to reinforce longstanding suspicions that smugglers, insurgents and corrupt officials control significant parts of the country’s oil industry.
The report also covered alternative explanations for the billions of dollars worth of discrepancies, including the possibility that Iraq has been consistently overstating its oil production.
Your tax dollars at work.
The “Iraq oil revenues will pay for the war” argument always rankled with me for two main reasons:
1. So we won’t invade to liberate a country unless that country also has ample natural resources to pay for the invasion?
and
2. Ahhh, so it is about oil. Good, now we know for sure.
No meters. Some of that missing oil finances insurgents and terrorists. All because we didn’t install meters to monitor and measure oil output and export.
OIL FOR FOOD!! OIL FOR FOOD!!
Oh, sorry, the wingnuts are in responsible for Iraq now. So for lack of a plausible explanation that makes Dear Leader look good, let’s just ignore this fact.