Bush said the Iraq war would pay for itself. When are the payments going to start coming in?

For the camera - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: “If you [Source: worry about just] the cost, the money, Iraq is a very different situation from Afghanistan…Iraq has oil. They have financial resources.” [Source: Fortune Magazine, Fall 2002]

***Reality - Washington - "American contractors swindled hundreds of millions of dollars in Iraqi funds, but so far there is no way for Iraq's government to recoup the money, according to US investigators and civil attorneys tracking fraud claims against contractors."

US Firms Suspected of Bilking Iraq Funds By Farah Stockman,

The Boston Globe

For the camera - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: “I don't believe that the United States has the responsibility for reconstruction, in a sense…[Reconstruction] funds can come from those various sources I mentioned: frozen assets, oil revenues and a variety of other things, including the Oil for Food, which has a very substantial number of billions of dollars in it." [Source: Senate Appropriations Hearing, 3/27/03]

***Reality - "Courts in the United States are beginning to force contractors to repay reconstruction funds stolen from the American government. But legal roadblocks have prevented Iraq from recovering funds that were seized from the Iraqi government by the US-led coalition and then paid to contractors who failed to do the work." - The Boston Globe

For the camera - Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz: “There’s a lot of money to pay for this that doesn’t have to be U.S. taxpayer money, and it starts with the assets of the Iraqi people…and on a rough recollection, the oil revenues of that country could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years…We’re dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.” [Source: House Committee on Appropriations Hearing on a Supplemental War Regulation, 3/27/03]

***Reality - Grayson said the injustice surrounding wasted Iraqi funds has helped fuel the insurgency.

"The DFI was essentially treated as a 'slush fund' for various quasi-military projects, run by US contractors over whom Iraqis had no control," he said. "Like a colonial power, the Bush administration took Iraq's oil money, and wasted it. The Iraqis well know that. That's one reason why they're shooting at US soldiers." - Farah Stockman The Boston Globe Sunday 16 April 2006

For the camera - Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage: “This is not Afghanistan…When we approach the question of Iraq, we realize here is a country which has a resource. And it’s obvious, it’s oil. And it can bring in and does bring in a certain amount of revenue each year…$10, $15, even $18 billion…this is not a broke country.” [Source: House Committee on Appropriations Hearing on a Supplemental War Regulation, 3/27/03]

***Reality - "The coalition ultimately controlled more than $20.7 billion in Iraqi funds. The money was deposited into an account called the Development Fund for Iraq, or DFI, which was set up, in the words of the US administrator at the time, L. Paul Bremer III, "for the benefit of the Iraqi people."

"The fund represented the first cash reservoir US officials turned to as they worked to rebuild roads, bridges, and clinics. It carried fewer restrictions than the $18.4 billion in US funds appropriated around that time for reconstruction because those funds could only be used in ways designated by Congress."

"But the Coalition Provisional Authority lacked basic controls and accounting procedures to keep track of the billions in Iraqi money it was doling out to contractors, according to a series of audits issued in 2005 and 2006 by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, a temporary office set up by Congress to oversee the use of reconstruction funds. One review of the files relating to 198 separate contracts found that 154 contained no evidence that goods or services promised by contractors were ever received, according to an April 2005 audit by the inspector general." - The Boston Globe Sunday 16 April 2006

I see someone here does not believe you. Bush through his mouth pieces, Wolfowitz, Ari Fleisher & Rumsfeld and the rest of the cabal said the war would pay for itself. They had said that all it would have cost the American people would have been as low as $1 Billion and as high as $50 Billion with everything else being financed by Iraqi oil revenues.

The only people we see getting paid is Blackwater the private security company and Halliburton along with its subisidiary KBR

I have studied finance in depth and obtained several degrees and honors for my work the economy is not based on normal economic thinking. Gorge Soros even said they need a new school of economics to explain the current economic system this is true. Our current economic system is based on subversive secret acts of governments and institutions manipulating currencies and financial markets. Deficits dont matter when all you have to do to pay it off is print more money...

He is getting paid, the Oil company's and Haliburton. Whats the problem.

Heh-HEM!!

"bush, like a rock, but dumber!"

Check the link below ;)

LoL! Who knows when they are going to come in.

he is known to suffer from delusion so it is probably one of those when he spoke that came to the front of his mind

i dont know he probably trying to deceive us and and pile up our taxes and we wont notice,

Where is your proof that he ever said that?

israel reaps the rewards.