All that rhetoric about nation building we heard about at the beginning of the invasion has been absent since then. I remember Bush claiming after the invasion that money would be spent to rebuilt infrastructure, etc, to create a strong democratic Iraq. Obviously, that went to crap. However, was it ever serious? I do remember at least one budget asking for billions in reconstruction funding. What ever happened to those billions? Is there currently any capital building projects underway? More basic, is there any Iraqi economy outside of security?
Additionally, what about the oil industry? We don’t even hear about that anymore, why? Is it producing? Better or worse than pre-invasion? What is happening to any Iraq oil revenues?