Iraq's billions

[Justine Cooper]

Is it true that Iraq is stocking up billions of dollars from oil while our gas prices continue to rise and we rebuild their country and lose lives daily? If so, would someone who believes in continuing this war like McCain please comment?

[Danielle Masters]

I can't answer the second part of your question but I have heard numbers like a $89 billion Iraqi surplus yet we are spending upwards of $10 billion a month in Iraq. Sure that makes sense.

[Stephen Eisel]

while our gas prices continue to rise

You can thank Nancy for the rising gas prices.. Gas prices have increased by over 75% since the dems took control of congress...

http://72.167.140.182/wp-content/upload ... prices.gif

[Justine Cooper]

Stephen,
Stick to the question: if Iraq is gaining billions from oil while we are fighting their fight and rebuilding their country while many die daily, and our country needs bailout and has the highest gas prices ever, explain why we should continue with the war. Without blaming or fingerpointing or evading, what justification do we have for continuing with this war?

[Stephen Eisel]

Stephen,
Stick to the question: if Iraq is gaining billions from oil while we are fighting their fight and rebuilding their country while many die daily, and our country needs bailout and has the highest gas prices ever, explain why we should continue with the war. Without blaming or fingerpointing or evading, what justification do we have for continuing with this war?

and how would this be different from the US rebuilding Germany or Japan after WWII? to the victor goes the bill!

[Justine Cooper]

I am talking about the here and now. Wasn't around in those wars to have my say and fortunately was born into a time when women can have opinions.

How do you justify staying in a war fighting for a country that is making billions in the meantime? How do you justify staying there and why.

If you think I agree with all things that have happened with this country since its inception I think you know better. But here and now is where we are.......

[Stephen Eisel]

I am talking about the here and now. Wasn't around in those wars to have my say and fortunately was born into a time when women can have opinions.

How do you justify staying in a war fighting for a country that is making billions in the meantime? How do you justify staying there and why.

If you think I agree with all things that have happened with this country since its inception I think you know better. But here and now is where we are.......

How much revenue is Iraq generating from thier oil fields?

Whereas Iraqi officials estimated $35 billion in oil revenues last fall, Bowen said the final number is likely to be closer to $60 billion.

Click Here Please

[Ryan Salo]

Justine,

I agree with you, ok you can get up off the floor

If we are risking American lives to help them then they should not be making a profit while we spend money we do not have.

I am a fiscal conservative and what we have been doing with money we don't have is disgusting and should be illegal. If we need to spend this money then we should make massive cuts in the government to try to at least make a dent in the problem.

I am guessing that at some point a repayment plan will be worked out. That is assuming a lot from an administration that has disappointed most of the folks that voted to get them in office.

[Justine Cooper]

Holy smokes I really did have to get off the floor! I just committed myself to staying off the deck which enabled me to avoid my homework and knowing no minds could be changed but I am glad I peeked here first! A Republican admitting this administration is wrong is worth it!

[Stephen Eisel]

How is it that I cannot edit my post but someone else can? WTF is up with that?

[Stephen Eisel]

We should start collecting from the Iraqis ASAP

[Jim DeVito]

How is it that I cannot edit my post but someone else can? WTF is up with that?

Stephen that is my faule. I am sorry. I ment to reply to your post but must have hit the edit button instead. I think you post was a question regarding how much oil revenu Iraq had. I was posting my responce. Your original post is retained within the edited post. Sorry for the trouble.

[ryan costa]

The ten billion a month the U.S. spends in Iraq is mostly spent paying the U.S. Military, the U.S. Contractors, and the rest of the U.S. government to be there. As General Powell said, we break it we own it.

The Iraqis interviewed on Sixty Minutes sunday expressed the sentiment that they did not feel better off than before the U.S. Liberated Iraq. Factors included the constant sectarian violence and nearly complete collapse of infrastructure and utilities. Just imagine the power outages we experienced a few weeks ago, only constantly, and then getting shot or blown up or kidnapped on the way to the corner store for water and rice.

It is possible that most Iraqis don't consider it a possibility they owe america anything. Part of the psychology of group dynamics is that the group is much less receptive to criticism, violence, or advice from outside the group than if the same criticism, violence, or advice came from within the group. There's a lot of re-work that will have to be done. 99 percent of what Saddam Hussein did in Iraq will need to be re-done. that developmental history was demolished by George W.Bush and Dick Cheney. Maybe that developmental history can be redone faster this time. because of computers!

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, as vice chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council, formally the al-Bakr's second-in-command, Saddam built a reputation as a progressive, effective politician.[18] At this time, Saddam moved up the ranks in the new government by aiding attempts to strengthen and unify the Ba'ath party and taking a leading role in addressing the country's major domestic problems and expanding the party's following.

After the Baathists took power in 1968, Saddam focused on attaining stability in a nation riddled with profound tensions. Long before Saddam, Iraq had been split along social, ethnic, religious, and economic fault lines: Sunni versus Shi'ite, Arab versus Kurd, tribal chief versus urban merchant, nomad versus peasant. (Humphreys, 78) Stable rule in a country rife with factionalism required both massive repression and the improvement of living standards. (Humphreys, 78)

Saddam actively fostered the modernization of the Iraqi economy along with the creation of a strong security apparatus to prevent coups within the power structure and insurrections apart from it. Ever concerned with broadening his base of support among the diverse elements of Iraqi society and mobilizing mass support, he closely followed the administration of state welfare and development programs.

At the center of this strategy was Iraq's oil. On June 1, 1972, Saddam oversaw the seizure of international oil interests, which, at the time, dominated the country's oil sector. A year later, world oil prices rose dramatically as a result of the 1973 energy crisis, and skyrocketing revenues enabled Saddam to expand his agenda.

Within just a few years, Iraq was providing social services that were unprecedented among Middle Eastern countries. Saddam established and controlled the "National Campaign for the Eradication of Illiteracy" and the campaign for "Compulsory Free Education in Iraq," and largely under his auspices, the government established universal free schooling up to the highest education levels; hundreds of thousands learned to read in the years following the initiation of the program. The government also supported families of soldiers, granted free hospitalization to everyone, and gave subsidies to farmers. Iraq created one of the most modernized public-health systems in the Middle East, earning Saddam an award from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).[19][20]

To diversify the largely oil-based Iraqi economy, Saddam implemented a national infrastructure campaign that made great progress in building roads, promoting mining, and developing other industries. The campaign revolutionized Iraq's energy industries. Electricity was brought to nearly every city in Iraq, and many outlying areas.

Before the 1970s, most of Iraq's people lived in the countryside, where Saddam himself was born and raised, and roughly two-thirds were peasants. But this number would decrease quickly during the 1970s as the country invested much of its oil profits into industrial expansion.

Nevertheless, Saddam focused on fostering loyalty to the Ba'athist government in the rural areas. After nationalizing foreign oil interests, Saddam supervised the modernization of the countryside, mechanizing agriculture on a large scale, and distributing land to peasant farmers.[11] The Ba'athists established farm cooperatives, in which profits were distributed according to the labors of the individual and the unskilled were trained. The government's commitment to agrarian reform was demonstrated by the doubling of expenditures for agricultural development in 1974-1975. Moreover, agrarian reform in Iraq improved the living standard of the peasantry and increased production, though not to the levels for which Saddam had hoped.

Saddam became personally associated with Ba'athist welfare and economic development programs in the eyes of many Iraqis, widening his appeal both within his traditional base and among new sectors of the population. These programs were part of a combination of "carrot and stick" tactics to enhance support in the working class, the peasantry, and within the party and the government bureaucracy.

Saddam's organizational prowess was credited with Iraq's rapid pace of development in the 1970s; development went forward at such a fevered pitch that two million persons from other Arab countries and even Yugoslavia worked in Iraq to meet the growing demand for labor.


Succession
In 1976, Saddam rose to the position of general in the Iraqi armed forces, and rapidly became the strongman of the government. As the weak, elderly al-Bakr became unable to execute his duties, Saddam took on an increasingly prominent role as the face of the government both internally and externally. He soon became the architect of Iraq's foreign policy and represented the nation in all diplomatic situations. He was the de-facto leader of Iraq some years before he formally came to power in 1979. He slowly began to consolidate his power over Iraq's government and the Ba'ath party. Relationships with fellow party members were carefully cultivated, and Saddam soon accumulated a powerful circle of support within the party.

In 1979 al-Bakr started to make treaties with Syria, also under Ba'athist leadership, that would lead to unification between the two countries. Syrian President Hafez al-Assad would become deputy leader in a union, and this would drive Saddam to obscurity. Saddam acted to secure his grip on power. He forced the ailing al-Bakr to resign on July 16, 1979, and formally assumed the presidency.

Shortly afterwards, he convened an assembly of Ba'ath party leaders on July 22, 1979. During the assembly, which he ordered videotaped, Saddam claimed to have found spies and conspirators within the Ba'ath Party and read out the names of 68 members that he alleged to be such fifth columnists. These members were labelled "disloyal" and were removed from the room one by one and taken into custody. After the list was read, Saddam congratulated those still seated in the room for their past and future loyalty. The 68 people arrested at the meeting were subsequently put on trial, and 22 were sentenced to execution for treason.


Domestic policies and personality cult
Saddam saw himself as a social revolutionary and a modernizer, following the Nasser model. To the consternation of Islamic conservatives, his government gave women added freedoms and offered them high-level government and industry jobs. Saddam also created a Western-style legal system, making Iraq the only country in the Persian Gulf region not ruled according to traditional Islamic law (Sharia). Saddam abolished the Sharia law courts, except for personal injury claims.

Domestic conflict impeded Saddam's modernizing projects. Iraqi society is divided along lines of language, religion and ethnicity; Saddam's government rested on the support of the 20% minority of largely working class, peasant, and lower middle class Sunnis, continuing a pattern that dates back at least to the British colonial authority's reliance on them as administrators.

The Shi'a majority were long a source of opposition to the government's secular policies, and the Ba'ath Party was increasingly concerned about potential Shi'a Islamist influence following the Iranian Revolution of 1979. The Kurds of northern Iraq (who are Sunni Muslims but not Arabs) were also permanently hostile to the Ba'athist party's pan-Arabism. To maintain power Saddam tended either to provide them with benefits so as to co-opt them into the regime, or to take repressive measures against them. The major instruments for accomplishing this control were the paramilitary and police organizations. Beginning in 1974, Taha Yassin Ramadan, a close associate of Saddam, commanded the People's Army, which was responsible for internal security. As the Ba'ath Party's paramilitary, the People's Army acted as a counterweight against any coup attempts by the regular armed forces. In addition to the People's Army, the Department of General Intelligence (Mukhabarat) was the most notorious arm of the state security system, feared for its use of torture and assassination. It was commanded by Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, Saddam's younger half-brother. Since 1982, foreign observers believed that this department operated both at home and abroad in their mission to seek out and eliminate Saddam's perceived opponents.[21]

Saddam justified Iraqi nationalism by claiming a unique role of Iraq in the history of the Arab world. As president, Saddam made frequent references to the Abbasid period, when Baghdad was the political, cultural, and economic capital of the Arab world. He also promoted Iraq's pre-Islamic role as Mesopotamia, the ancient cradle of civilization, alluding to such historical figures as Nebuchadrezzar II and Hammurabi. He devoted resources to archaeological explorations. In effect, Saddam sought to combine pan-Arabism and Iraqi nationalism, by promoting the vision of an Arab world united and led by Iraq.

As a sign of his consolidation of power, Saddam's personality cult pervaded Iraqi society. Thousands of portraits, posters, statues and murals were erected in his honor all over Iraq. His face could be seen on the sides of office buildings, schools, airports, and shops, as well as on Iraqi currency. Saddam's personality cult reflected his efforts to appeal to the various elements in Iraqi society. He appeared in the costumes of the Bedouin, the traditional clothes of the Iraqi peasant (which he essentially wore during his childhood), and even Kurdish clothing, but also appeared in Western suits, projecting the image of an urbane and modern leader. Sometimes he would also be portrayed as a devout Muslim, wearing full headdress and robe, praying toward Mecca.

It is important to share american culture. I don't think old John Wayne movies will help, but maybe the old Abbot and Costello films will.

[Stephen Eisel]

How is it that I cannot edit my post but someone else can? WTF is up with that?

Stephen that is my faule. I am sorry. I ment to reply to your post but must have hit the edit button instead. I think you post was a question regarding how much oil revenu Iraq had. I was posting my responce. Your original post is retained within the edited post. Sorry for the trouble.

In that case, I need a hug ASAP...

[Jim DeVito]

How is it that I cannot edit my post but someone else can? WTF is up with that?

Stephen that is my faule. I am sorry. I ment to reply to your post but must have hit the edit button instead. I think you post was a question regarding how much oil revenu Iraq had. I was posting my responce. Your original post is retained within the edited post. Sorry for the trouble.

In that case, I need a hug ASAP...

I am standing on your porch right now. Love WiFi!