[MississippiMan]

So WE pay to rebuild Iraq? After we free them from their own oppression, make it so the country can benefit from the enormous amount of cash it sits on, and WE pay for rebuilding their country?

I only had time to skim the article; please tell me I missed the part where this money is coming from IRAQI oil sales.

MM

[Mark Felton]

The only money coming from ANY Mid East country will be the $$ millions being shipped from Saudi Arabia to the Clark Presidential Campaign.

[general_re]

The Iraqi oil industry has to be rebuilt before it becomes a real source of income for anyone, not to mention the security problems that need to be nailed down first - it's tough to sell oil to anyone when your pipelines keep blowing up every few weeks. Eventually, it'll all come back on line, and I think we can reasonably expect a fair slice of the Iraqi oil pie. In the meantime, it's probably best to think of this as seed money.

[CurlyDave]

Complete agreement there.

And, we should point out that people who blow up oil pipelines & such are delaying the restoration effort.

Not a cent should go into IRAQ which doesn't come out of the ground over there.

If they need money faster than they can pump oil, we might condsider a loan to be paid back from future revenue. Or, even better yet, let them sell bonds on the open market.