WP: Bremer: Iraq Effort to Cost Tens of Billions

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50396-2003Aug26.html

Iraq will need "several tens of billions" of dollars from abroad in the next year to rebuild its rickety infrastructure and revive its moribund economy, and American taxpayers and foreign governments will be asked to contribute substantial sums, U.S. occupation coordinator L. Paul Bremer said yesterday.

Bremer said Iraqi revenue will not nearly cover the bill for economic needs "almost impossible to exaggerate." Just to meet current electrical demand will cost $2 billion, Bremer said, while a national system to deliver clean water would cost an estimated $16 billion over four years.

The figures, which must be added to the $4 billion the Pentagon spends each month on military operations in Iraq, offer the latest evidence that the price of the Iraqi occupation is growing substantially. A State Department official said the Bush administration is preparing to seek a "huge" supplemental spending bill from Congress. Administration sources also said the U.S.-controlled Coalition Provisional Authority is running so low on funds that the White House is considering seeking an emergency infusion next month to cover the organization's bills.

Bremer's comments, in an interview with Washington Post reporters and editors, came on a day when the Congressional Budget Office said the federal government would post a record deficit next year of $480 billion. Wary of revealing specifics, neither Bremer nor President Bush -- who referred to "substantial" new costs in a St. Louis speech -- would give details.

I don't know what else to say.

this whole think stinks to high heaven and it is going to get worst as time goe's on , these suckers are robbing america of money that could be well spent here to help our people , leave iraq now and let the un pick up the peices and get these bums out of office and lets get on with our lifes

footing this bill will most assuredly be the ruination of this country.


:mad:

What the fuck are they spending all of this money on? The troops don't have enough food and water. Rummie protected his precious oil fields, so they don't need to rebuild those. They did have electric in Baghdad until we moved in. So tell me again, why did we knock out their power plants after Baghdad fell? The Iraqi people are in much worse shape, than they were before we got rid of Saddam. None of this makes sense, when you consider that we are already spending 1 billion a week and have nothing to show for it. WHERE IS ALL THIS MONEY GOING? Or doesn't Halliburton have enough of our taxpayer dollars, stashed in their offshore accounts? Where's Congress? Too busy writing blank checks to bother investigating anything?

estimates on the oil fields are close to 50+ billion .. the whole system has to be secured then complety rebuilt. the whole system is over 25 years old and has not been maintained for years...this is one of the reasons the bushboys don`t want the un in there. the russians,french,chinesse had contracts with saddam to rebuild and develope new fields...

when we took over. Saddam did not set fire to his oil wells or destroy them, like we expected him too. Rummie did focus our resources on protecting these fields and so there was little damage done to them as a result of the invasion. Most of the damage since has been to the pipelines that we can't figure out how to keep secure. In the meantime, can you or anyone else show me what we are actually spending all of this money on. These numbers and reality just don't add up.

to spend 16 billion of our money to rebuild a water system that they destroyed. while we have to have our rates raised to pay for our electricity improvements, we also have to pay for the iraq`s electricity rebuilding. rebuilding that never had to happen. this is going to kill the housing market,refiancing and other markets. the government will have to raise interest on the bonds to sell the amount they will need to cover the debt. by this time next year we should be looking at 700+ billion debt..it`s those big spending democrats and all those fucking old people and soldiers that`s ruining our economy..big government democrats!!!!

is getting on my nerves. I thought that he was put there because he was trusted to put things right, instead he has failed to do anything but dig a deeper hole and piss everybody off by begging for money. If he was running a business here, he would have been out on the street within days of his appointment after putting on performances like this.
Really, even the most objective, even handed view of this guy leads to the conclusion that his command needs to be terminated.
Even if you consider the fact that his job is impossible, the guy needs to be honest an admit that it's impossible and at least be honorable about it.

yeah bigtime!

i could have talked saddam into retiring...would have been able to fix iraq for a couple of billion tops!!

dumbasses!!

n/t