Who’s to pay for Iraq’s reconstruction, Iraqi or U.S. taxpayer?

 

By Fatih Abdulsalam

 

Azzaman, May 25, 2008

 

There have been calls in the U.S. Congress demanding Iraq to pay for the post-war reconstruction from its oil revenues rather than American taxpayers’ money.

 

Such calls were never made before. U.S. legislators started mulling them when expenditures on the twin wars of Iraq and Afghanistan skyrocketed to unreasonable levels.

 

Demands like these are not only unacceptable but are in a sense meant to punish Iraqis for the destruction and devastation U.S.-waged invasion and occupation of their country has caused.

 

Does it mean that the U.S. Congress wants us to pay billions of dollars for the reconstruction of bridges, hospitals, schools as well as cities, towns and villages U.S. warplanes and military might have destroyed?

 

Does it mean that we the Iraqis are responsible for nearly 13-year long embargo which the U.S. insisted on clamping on the former regime but its real sufferers and victims were the Iraqi people?

 

Are we going to pay for the mistakes and plunders of U.S.-sponsored Iraqi governments whose ultimate aim has been to reinstate a state of sectarianism and manage the country and its resources to meet their sectarian goals?

 

Iraqis have been made to pay with their blood which has been flowing like rivers since the U.S. invasion. And shockingly the U.S. would like them to pay for the destruction it has inflicted on their country as if their blood is not enough.

 

The U.S. is morally responsible for the construction of Iraq but it is doubtful whether its political leaders have any more morality left. The whole Iraq war is morally wrong. It is too much indeed to ask the U.S. to get it morally right.