Houston oilman: Fixing Iraq to take time, $ (" .we will get our dividend")

[Khephra]

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- U.S. taxpayers likely will not get a direct payback from Iraq's oil revenues for the billions spent to rebuild the country, but the expenditure is still a good investment, Philip Carroll, the senior American oil official here, said Wednesday.

"I think we will get our dividend," the Houston oilman said of the $20 billion Iraq reconstruction plan before Congress. "But all of the Iraqi oil proceeds, at least until there is a sovereign Iraqi government, will be devoted to the people of Iraq."

Carroll's analysis, which he gave in an interview with the Houston Chronicle days before he was to leave for home, came as the debate sharpened in Washington over the Bush administration's $87 billion reconstruction plan for Iraq and Afghanistan.

Some Senate Republicans demanded that Iraq repay at least a portion of the rebuilding effort with its oil revenues. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, introduced an amendment that calls for providing half of the $20 billion Bush is seeking for Iraq in the form of loans and loan guarantees. The White House insisted the total aid package should be in outright grants.

more.............

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/2132249

[RobertSeattle]

1. Guy must not have gotten the Bush/Cheney Memo...

"No public gloating about how much $$$ your company is going to make with the Iraq contracts were are going to send your way"

[liberalmuse]

2. I wonder how many of his kids...

are over in Iraq dying for oil. &%$#@#! So the 'pubs want Iraq to pay for the damage we've done. These people are utterly contemptable.

[leesa]

3. Senate Republicans demand Iraq pay for a portion of its rebuilding??

These bastards will NEVER understand that Iraq did nothing to deserve this. WE will pay and we will pay for decades. Iraq has zero obligation to pay a penny. Why are Republicans so immoral?