About that Iraqi Surplus...

Since Sirota's post started a debate over at Openleft, and Obama seems to be making it a part of his stump speech, I figured I'd expand a bit on why some of his language on Iraq makes me uncomfortable. First let's take the example from Obama's weekly democratic radio address:

The second thing we learned this week was that the Iraqi government now has a $79 billion budget surplus thanks to their windfall oil profits. And while this Iraqi money sits in American banks, American taxpayers continue to spend $10 billion a month to defend and rebuild Iraq.

That’s right. America faces a huge budget deficit. Iraq has a surplus.

Now, Senator McCain promises to continue President Bush’s open-ended commitment to the war in Iraq, while refusing to pressure Iraqis to take responsibility for their own country.

Let me be clear: we are well over five years into a war in a country that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. Our brave men and women in uniform have completed every mission they’ve been given. Our country has spent nearly a trillion dollars in Iraq, even as our schools are underfunded, our roads and bridges are crumbling, and the cost of everything from groceries to a gallon of gas is soaring.

Now think for a moment about what we could have done with the hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars that we’ve spent in Iraq. We could have rebuilt American schools and roads and bridges. We could have made historic investments in alternative energy to create millions of American jobs. We could have headed-off $4 dollar a gallon gas and begun to end the tyranny of oil in our time.

Colonial rhetoric among politicians and even democrats is nothing new, but this is just upsetting because Barack had been one of the best at avoiding it before this. Let's start with the worst offender here:

Now, Senator McCain promises to continue President Bush’s open-ended commitment to the war in Iraq, while refusing to pressure Iraqis to take responsibility for their own country.

There are tons of problems with the current situation in Iraq, but implying that the Iraqis need to be pressured and are inherently incapable of taking care of themselves is colonial rhetoric at it's finest. In addition, the things we are "pressuring" them to do are things that don't exactly eye to eye with their own self interest. As Naomi Klein stated in an interview a little while back, the main plank of our "pressure" has been getting them to pass the "Carbon Law" which reverses the nationalization of their oil, and opens it up to be used by foreign oil companies. So putting more pressure on the legislature to pass a law that will rob Iraq of it's best resource and make the government hated by their constituents... not really a good thing.

The counter argument to these types of statements is: "They're government gets nothing done, all they do is squabble.", "They won't pass the legislation we've asked them to", and the latest:

"The second thing we learned this week was that the Iraqi government now has a $79 billion budget surplus thanks to their windfall oil profits. And while this Iraqi money sits in American banks, American taxpayers continue to spend $10 billion a month to defend and rebuild Iraq.

That’s right. America faces a huge budget deficit. Iraq has a surplus."

First off, the reason the surplus is so high, is because their legislature hasn't been able to agree to a budget yet, which will account for a large chunk of that money. And why has it been difficult to get all sides to come together on issues like the budget much less something as controversial as the "carbon law"? COULD IT BE BECAUSE THE COUNTRY IS IN THE MIDDLE OF A FUCKING CIVIL WAR? That might have something to do with disagreements. If people think our congress gets deadlocked, imagine how productive a legislature is when a good chuck of the members aren't completely sold on this whole Iraq as a country thing.

In addition, let's go with the other element that is implied with statements like these:

And while this Iraqi money sits in American banks, American taxpayers continue to spend $10 billion a month to defend and rebuild Iraq.

And Carl Levin (D-MI):

“The Iraqi government now has tens of billions of dollars at its disposal to fund large-scale reconstruction projects,” Mr. Levin, who is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a joint statement with Mr. Warner. “It is inexcusable for U.S. taxpayers to continue to foot the bill for projects the Iraqis are fully capable of funding themselves. We should not be paying for Iraqi projects, while Iraqi oil revenues continue to pile up in the bank.”

Let's put aside for a moment my own view that maybe we SHOULD be paying for Iraqi projects for a decent while after their government is functional since, oh I don't know, the country' infrastructure wasn't great but it also wasn't NON-EXISTENT before we decided to stop by. Whether it's popular or not, it's our obligation to be the leader in a massive international aid campaign to this country for the foreseeable future. I don't care how politically unpopular that is, it's our moral obligation for what the horror and destruction we've caused the country. Period.

But back to the quotes. The implication with those statements is that while we continue to pay halliburton, KBR and other American companies insane sums of money to do small amounts of "reconstruction" work in the country, the Iraq government letting us do all the work, while they sit back and amass massive profits from their Oil industry. Now they are amassing huge profits, but there's a pretty good reason why the can't spend it: They don't have the fully functioning bureaucracies and infrastructure to successfully execute the majority of the work.

If that sounds like problems that a war torn country with a three year old legislature might have, then you'd be right. These type of "brain drain" problems tend to occur in situations where anyone who had enough money to leave, did. The GAO's own report states:

The "relative shortage of trained budgetary, procurement and other staff with the necessary technical skills as a factor limiting the Iraqi government's ability to plan and execute its capital spending," the GAO said.

"Violence and sectarian strife remain major obstacles to developing Iraqi government capacity," it said.

Outside of the rhetoric of a political campaign, even a senior US Embassy official in Iraq explains:

The official told the Reuters news agency the report captured only part of the picture when it said Baghdad was failing to spend on reconstruction, leaving much of the task to Washington.

"The impression that somehow the Iraqis are sitting back on these huge growing balances does not really fit what is happening," the official, who did not want to be identified, said.

The US official said he hoped bureaucratic changes to facilitate contracts and to authorise spending would help Iraqi officials spend the money.

"They are looking for ways to de-bottleneck their own expenditures," he said.

My point is, I understand why this rhetoric is used, and why it is successful. Sadly, in people's frustration over the Iraq (which man, do I understand) they are willing to create black and white answers to complex questions and to place the blame where it doesn't belong. The Iraqi government has it's own fair share of corruption and screw ups but let's be clear: The current situation in Iraq our doing, it came from our decisions, our bombs and our rockets.

This line of campaigning paints the Iraqi government in an overwhelmingly negative light and takes the spotlight away from the real villains and those who truly deserve blame. It may be easy to score political points using colonial rhetoric to discuss the problems of the flegling Iraqi government, but the democrats should resist that urge and save their criticism for the truly responsible parties.

Many democrats won't do that, because they themselves are the ones responsible. They have blood on their hands and they will do anything to cast the spotlight away from their horrific judgment.

But Barack doesn't need to do that. He was right on the war, and he has no reason to focus his fire anywhere other than George Bush, Dick Cheney and John McCain; The people who brought us this war. Brining up the surplus of the Iraqi government as a political attack may be an effective line in a stump speech, but it's an unbelievably simplistic and dishonest way of discussing the situation.

Let's keep our attacks aimed squarely at those who brought us this war, and keep the Iraqi government and Iraqi people out of the crossfire.