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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: geode00 who wrote (211239)	12/29/2006 10:43:21 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 281500

"Was the Iraq war supposed to pay for itself?" house.gov Press Secretary Ari Fleischer: “Well, the reconstruction costs remain a very -- an issue for the future. And Iraq, unlike Afghanistan, is a rather wealthy country. Iraq has tremendous resources that belong to the Iraqi people. And so there are a variety of means that Iraq has to be able to shoulder much of the burden for their own reconstruction.” [Source: White House Press Briefing, 2/18/03] Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage: “This is not Afghanistan…When we approach the question of Iraq, we realize here is a country which has a resource. And it’s obvious, it’s oil. And it can bring in and does bring in a certain amount of revenue each year…$10, $15, even $18 billion…this is not a broke country.” [Source: House Committee on Appropriations Hearing on a Supplemental War Regulation, 3/27/03] Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz: “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.” [Source: House Committee on Appropriations Hearing on a Supplemental War Regulation, 3/27/03] Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: “If you [Source: worry about just] the cost, the money, Iraq is a very different situation from Afghanistan…Iraq has oil. They have financial resources.” [Source: Fortune Magazine, Fall 2002] State Department Official Alan Larson: “On the resource side, Iraq itself will rightly shoulder much of the responsibilities. Among the sources of revenue available are $1.7 billion in invested Iraqi assets, the found assets in Iraq…and unallocated oil-for-food money that will be deposited in the development fund.” [Source: Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearing on Iraq Stabilization, 06/04/03] Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: “I don't believe that the United States has the responsibility for reconstruction, in a sense…[Reconstruction] funds can come from those various sources I mentioned: frozen assets, oil revenues and a variety of other things, including the Oil for Food, which has a very substantial number of billions of dollars in it. [Source: Senate Appropriations Hearing, 3/27/03]

To: geode00 who wrote (211239)	12/30/2006 7:12:19 AM
From: Elroy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

That was 6 years ago. Dubya, I believe, is still competing with Herbert Hoover for the worst job performance figures. Yup, everyone agrees Dubya sucks, but we were talking about wages. That's not even taking into consideration WHAT KIND of jobs have been created. The US is turning into an also-ran economic backwater. Just ask GM and Ford. MSFT, CSCO, Hollywood, GOOG, INTC, QCOM and numerous other US companies that are rapidly growing and virtually global monopolies in their industries disagree with you. Economic backwaters don't have 95% employment. I don;t know what kind of jobs have been created in the past 6 years, but everyone I know my age has a decent job, has had one for most of the past 6 years, a few have changed jobs a few times, and outside of SI I don't hear these complaints in real life. You can quote all the stats you want (even though you didn't quote any), the US economy seems to be doing well by all the guages that I see in real life. To think otherwise is to be an utterly stupid individual. Not just stupid, but utterly stupid? Wow. I hope you don't meet many people that disagree with you, because it wouldn't be very fun for you living amongst a collection of utterly stupid individuals. Much better if everyone agrees with you, and then you can all be smart together. Or maybe it would be best if you just stayed home...