Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

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Remember When Bush Administration Said Rebuilding Iraq Would Cost Taxpayers 1.7 Billion Dollars?

by August Keso, March 9th, 2006
Remember when the Bush administration claimed rebuilding Iraq would only cost the American taxpayers $1.7 billion? Well, few people do, and Republicans and the administration would prefer it to remain that way. Of course, as everyone knows now, the war costs have exceeded $250 billion. Well, destroying a country, slaughtering more than 30,000 of its people and forcing it into civil war don't come cheap. It's a lot of "hard work" and costs money. Lots-n-lots of money!

The American people should have seen coming the incompetence that is BushCo. Long before Bush managed to completely bungle Katrina, before anyone heard of Michael "Doin' a Heckuva Job" Brown, there was Andrew Natsios.

"Our guest tonight is Andrew Natsios," Ted Koppel, onetime Nightline anchor said, "administrator of the Agency for International Development, the lead agency that is responsible for rebuilding the infrastructure of Iraq. Mr. Natsios was manager of Boston's 'Big Dig,' the largest public works project in American history."

Boom! Right there the alarm bells should have been sounding. The "Big Dig," for those not aware, is America's, if not history's, most mismanaged road construction project. Just ask the lucky chubs in Boston. Huge cost overruns, leaky tunnels, and every other imaginable problem -- all part of the "Big Dig's" legacy! And the guy responsible for that is who Bush put in charge of rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure.

Koppel: All right, this is the first. I mean, when you talk about 1.7, you're not suggesting that the rebuilding of Iraq is gonna be done for $1.7 billion?

Andrew Natsios: Well, in terms of the American taxpayers contribution, I do, this is it for the US. The rest of the rebuilding of Iraq will be done by other countries who have already made pledges, Britain, Germany, Norway, Japan, Canada, and Iraqi oil revenues, eventually in several years, when it's up and running and there's a new government that's been democratically elected, will finish the job with their own revenues. They're going to get in $20 billion a year in oil revenues. But the American part of this will be 1.7 billion. We have no plans for any further-on funding for this.

Okay, so Natsios and the Bush administration were off by a "few" BILLION. Well, $248.3 billion to be exact, but for a "ballpark" figure -- not...er, bad. True, not close as when Bush and Republicans claimed the Medicare Plan had 25 million participants. The real number is 5 million, so they were only off by 20 million on that. Though not great, they have gotten better -- 248.3 billion versus 20 million, that's improvement.

In fairness to Bush and Republicans, when the administration was claiming rebuilding Iraq would only cost $1.7 billion, they might have meant only the cost of Bush's propaganda program. That has cost the American taxpayer $1.6 billion, which is 0.1 billion dollars less than the original Iraq War cost estimate. If they did mean the cost of Bush's Iraq War propaganda program and not rebuilding Iraq itself, they were only off by a smidge...and for government estimates that would really be pretty damn good!

http://www.progressivedailybeacon.com/commentary.php?id=1030