Making Iraq pay to be occupied

Eric Ruder reports on Democratic proposals to shift the burden of paying for reconstructing Iraq onto Iraqis

Socialist Worker, May 12, 2008

SEVERAL U.S. senators are hopping mad about the immense amount of money that the U.S. government has spent to occupy Iraq.
And they have a plan to do something about it: Make Iraqis pay for the U.S. to occupy their country.

“It’s obvious that there’s a windfall that Iraq is experiencing, and it’s at our expense,” said Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), on National Public Radio’s Marketplace on April 24. “They’re generating a surplus at a time when–in large part because of our defense and our work on their behalf–we’re generating a deficit.”

Nelson and other Democratic senators, who consider themselves critics of the Iraq war, are using such arguments as a line of attack against George W. Bush, essentially claiming that the administration hasn’t made enough demands on the Iraqi government and that the U.S. is spending too much on Iraq’s reconstruction.

According to this upside-down narrative, the U.S., whose occupation devastated Iraq’s infrastructure and economy, is the country’s savior, while the Iraqi government is to blame for the lack of electricity and clean water.

Continued . . .