Iraq Owes Billions To The United States

[Spiffor]

Thanks to democracy, pillage is a much less straightforward art today than before

Wouldn't you want them to pay reparations as well ? We have a tremendous place to 'negociate' such 'agreement' in Versailles

[Chemical Ollie]

If the american people wanted this war so eagerly, why shouldn't they pay every cent of it with tax money? Certainly the Iraqi people didn't ask for it.

[Drake Tungsten]

Certainly the Iraqi people didn't ask for it.

Actually, many of them did. Kurds, Iraqi National Congress, etc...

[Chemical Ollie]

Iraq National Congress? Whasn't that created (by US), AFTER the war?

[Drake Tungsten]

You're thinking of the provisional Iraqi government. The Iraqi National Congress was an organization of Iraqi ex-pats who lobbied for the overthrow of Hussein's regime, amongst other things.

[CerberusIV]

The US taxpayers (well, some of them) elected a President who was set on war with Iraq from day one. Time to pay for that decision.

If this stands it probably just hastens the day that Iraqis elect(?) a nationalist and possibly fundamentalist government that promptly tells the US where to shove its loan.

[uh Clem]

Democrats...

Too cowardly to simply vote No; why is that not a surprise?

[SnowFire]

I can't believe it. All the talk about Bush being the one to go to war for oil, and it's the Democrats that actually do it.

[Ramo]

****ing democrats. They vote to deconstruct Iraq, but then vote to force the future Iraqi gov't to foot the bill for our corporate welfare.

Of course, they supported without objection 67 billion in military costs and the 500 million in the irrelevent search for Saddam.

[Ramo]

I can't believe I'm actually agreeing with Shrub over the dems on (part of) this issue.

[Drake Tungsten]

I can't believe I'm actually agreeing with Shrub over the dems on (part of) this issue.

You're not the only one.

[Ramo]

Actually, many of them did. Kurds, Iraqi National Congress, etc...

They certainly didn't ask for the specific reconstruction agenda.

To a large extent, the contracts were offered in opposition to the interim governing council and public sentiment. For instance, we recently handed out a big fat contract to Jordan to train Iraqi police despite the strong objection of the IGC (who claimed it could be done by Iraqis for a third of the price).

[Drake Tungsten]

They certainly didn't ask for the specific reconstruction agenda.

That would probably be why I never said they did.

[Ramo]

They didn't want the aspect of the war that we're forcing them to pay for. Ollie's point is valid.

[Drake Tungsten]

I'm pretty sure Ollie meant that the Iraqis didn't want the war, not this specific aspect of the resconstruction, but believe what you want to. No need to argue over something so trivial.