To be more accurate, he was shoved out of his chair by Uncle Sam, who smashed up three plates and a saucer in the process and got those added to the bill.
Where’s the side that’s for making the money a loan?
And our debt next year is pegged at 1/2 trillion dollars, that’s trillion with a capital T…what’s your point?
We have a winner!*
I agree with you a lot more than you know about that debt, but let’s consider this: that 20 bil is 2% of our aggregate deficit: that is, if you add up the fiscal deficit, which is now running at a cool half a trillion dollars, and the current account deficit, another half a trillion, you get more or less a trillion in total. 20 billion, in that context, is a drop in the bucket.
For that sum, you propose destroying what little international credibility the U.S. has left? Do you honestly think this is a good investment?
Is there news on this matter now?
I also do not understand the thinking expressed in the article that a loan would encourage other nations to match US contributions - I believe the Senator Hutchinson of Texas argues this. Can someone explain?
I’d like to make what might be an unpopular but necessary point:
We owe these people. Not just us, but many nations who helped prop up a dictator that made their lives a living hell for 20 years.
Not only should we not loan them, but give them this money as reparations, they should repudiate all debts incurred under Saddam, and all agreements signed by him except those their elected government chooses to honor.
And Russia and France especially owe a lot. If we are paying $87 billion, they should come up with 1 trillion each. Those two nations supported Saddam more than any others by far.
However you take the politics, debt repudiation is always a bad thing if Iraq hopes to come back to the capital markets. Also if I read right in the past, I do not know your statements to France and Russia are correct as fact.
It’s a bad thing for Iraq’s credit, yes, but it would possibly make nations think twice before aiding dictators, and that would be a good thing. And nations like the US and Canada and Britain could demonstrate the example by loaning lots of money to Iraq if France and Russia won’t.
Russia and France were the leading suppliers of arms to Iraq, by far.
Your last claim, this is not the same as what you claim about debt. Please, we should see numbers not assertions.
For repudiation of debt, it is a bad thing if Iraq wants to borrow money again on the capital markets. It is a bad purely political idea hurting Iraq. I recall US has in past always sought full payment on debt, dictator or not, a change now would be strange and cheap self interest.
But I wanted to know if the American representatves were still for this idea of what some here have called a ‘forced loan.’ Is there news of this?
Therefore, it is a bad thing for Iraq.
No, it would make them think twice about lending anyone who might not be in a position to repay. For any reason. And they already do that. Not to mention that the USA has been in the business of aiding dictators, inclusing Saddam Hussein, for a long time now.
Why would other countries have any obligation to pick up the tab of what America broke? And why would even Iraq have to repay? It is America’s responsibility to put things right. Americ should foot the bill.
This is totally irrelevant but I believe it is also wrong and I would like to see a cite. Before 1990 the USA was the primary supplier of arms and help to Iraq to the point that it was helping with the day-to-day operations in the war with Iran and helped Iraq use poison gas. The hands of the USA are not clean by any means so let’s get off this silly notion that the USA is immaculate and all the other countries are greedy. The USA is no different in its motivations than any other country. Let’s get off this silly notion that the USA is motivated by righteousness.
No, it would make them think twice about lending anyone who might not be in a position to repay. For any reason. And they already do that. Not to mention that the USA has been in the business of aiding dictators, inclusing Saddam Hussein, for a long time now.
A policy that might stop if it doesn’t pay. It is incredibly unfair for Iraqis to have to shoulder the huge debt Saddam saddled them with. Even if they don’t repudiate it, if Western nations had any consience at all they’d forgive it. They knowingly propped this scumbag up to lord it over the Iraqis and now they want another pound of flesh from a newly freed people?
**Why would other countries have any obligation to pick up the tab of what America broke? And why would even Iraq have to repay? It is America’s responsibility to put things right. Americ should foot the bill. **
And what about the what Saddam broke, and all the nations that supported him? Iraq’s problems didn’t start with the war.
This is totally irrelevant but I believe it is also wrong and I would like to see a cite. Before 1990 the USA was the primary supplier of arms and help to Iraq to the point that it was helping with the day-to-day operations in the war with Iran and helped Iraq use poison gas. The hands of the USA are not clean by any means so let’s get off this silly notion that the USA is immaculate and all the other countries are greedy. The USA is no different in its motivations than any other country. Let’s get off this silly notion that the USA is motivated by righteousness.
Never said that the USA wasn’t complicit. I was just saying that France and Russia were more. I’ll get a cite in a moment, but I wonder why you’d need one. Do you read the news? Weren’t those AK-47s, T-72 tanks, and Migs in that military? Where were the M-16s, M1 tanks, F-16 fighters. Answer: they didn’t exist. Almost all the help we gave Iraq were things they could only use against Iran: naval support, diplomatic cover, satellite intelligence. The rest was dual-use materials that everyone was selling Iraq. If you want hard arms, you’re looking primarily at France and Russia.
And here is your cite:
http://www.command-post.org/archives/002978.html
US provided 1% of Iraqi arms.
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I’m all for the US paying for any and all legitimate Iraqi reconstruction expenses. It’s a drop in the bucket, compared to Shrub’s tax cuts for the rich. I’d rather help the Iraqis.
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Nonetheless, there’s a lot of goodies for Halliburton written into this bill, and we should hold it up long enough to go over it with a fine-toothed comb, and rake out all the ridiculousness. Planned communities, classes in how to be an entrepreneur, prison-building (prison-building?? in Iraq??), and all sorts of other bushwa, all at high-end rates even by American standards. I don’t think we’re going to be paying contractors in Basra to be working on any of this.
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So break this $87B bill in two: there’s $67B to pay the military’s expenses; send that on through. Then let’s take our time with the $20B for reconstruction, so that we do this right, so that $20B really goes to Iraq, and not to line the pockets of Dick Cheney’s buddies.
Republicans in the House today yanked the funding for the two new prisons, plus the 900 million for the ZIP codes and the funding for the new garbage trucks.
On the other hand, they took a billion or two and gave it directly to the CPA for their use without having to go through Pentagon procurement.
I don’t really know if they are good decisions or not, but they passed the bulk of the package.
Wow, I wish Congress would cut some of the pork headed for their own districts as ruthlessly as they cut pork headed out of the country.
I find it interesting that the US wants other countries to forgive Iraq’s debts, though we aren’t willing to cancel the debts of any impovershed countries that owe us money. It seems debt relief is only Ok when it benefits us.
And people wonder why the rest of the world sees us as hypocrites.
It’s not about impoverishment, it’s about the people being forced to take on debts they had no say in, not to mention the moral bankruptcy of doing chummy business with dictators.
The US should also repudiate Iraqi debts, as well as pay reparations. I’ve already made that case.
But a nation like Columbia or Mexico is a different matter altogether. The people elected those governments, who borrowed money. Thus the people are responsible for those debts just as Americans are responsible for debts their government incurs.
Hhmm… but many of those South American debts were done by dictators and US cronies… 
Many of these loans were clearly going to get dilluted by heavy corruption.
Many of my countrymen do complain about the national debt having being created more in the interest of the foreign banks than our national prosperity. Naturally the culprits were "our" politicians... but those banks should have been so generous to them in the first place.