Lautenberg Statement on Iraqi Government's Failure to Spend Budget Surplus on Country's Needs

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Lautenberg Statement on Iraqi Government's Failure to Spend Budget Surplus on Country's Needs

Senator Says It's "Outrageous" That Iraq Is Sitting On Billions While American Taxpayer Dollars Have Been Spent Rebuilding Iraq

Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) today issued the following statement on a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report that details how the Iraqi government has generated nearly $80 billion in profits on oil while spending only 1 percent on reconstruction, including water, electricity and building maintenance from 2005 to 2007. This comes just a week after Stuart W. Bowen Jr., the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, said he favored ending U.S. participation in Iraq reconstruction entirely, because the Iraqi oil windfalls are more than adequate to meet the Iraq's reconstruction needs.

"One of the countless promises the Bush Administration made about Iraq that proved untrue was the assurance that Iraqi oil revenues, and not American taxpayer money, would pay for reconstruction efforts there. It is outrageous that Iraq is sitting on tens of billions of dollars in unused surpluses while the United States faces record deficits and has paid so much for Iraq's reconstruction. Iraq and the Halliburtons of the world have seen enough American reconstruction money."

At the beginning of the Iraq war in 2003, Bush Administration officials claimed that Iraq's oil wealth would pay for the reconstruction of that country. In its report, the GAO said while U.S. government agencies spent about $23.2 billion on Iraq's critical security, oil, electricity, and water sectors, Iraq spent about $3.9 billion on these sectors, from 2005 through April 2008. The United States has appropriated a total of $48 billion in taxpayer dollars to help stabilize stabilization and rebuild Iraq since 2003.

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