One of our Libertarian correspondents has been touting the wonderful windfall of Iraqi oil coming on line. It doesn’t look like it’s helping Uncle Sam one bit.
Soaring oil prices will leave the Iraqi government with a cumulative budget surplus of as much as $79 billion by year’s end, according to an American federal oversight agency. But Iraq has spent only a minute fraction of that on reconstruction costs, which are now largely borne by the United States.
So while we have spent $48 Billion of U.S. taxpayer’s money on Iraq reconstruction, the Iraqi government has so much money sitting at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York that the U.S. paid Iraq $435.6 million in interest in the last two years.
This seems like a good campaign issue. Does John McCain really want to continue to play Uncle Sucker?
