GAO: Iraq's Government, Requesting Billions, Has Billions in Surplus

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Back in 2003 as the invasion of Iraq was getting underway, Paul Wolfowitz famously told Congress that “We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon."

Last month, nearly eight years after Wolfowitz's flawed prediction, as tens of thousands of troops left Iraq, a House subcommittee stamped its approval on President Barack Obama’s controversial request for $2 billion in 2011 to arm and train Iraq’s military. It is unclear if the Senate will follow suit, but they have approved some funding. On top of the $2 billion, the proposed State Department budget allocates an additional $2.5 billion to step up its operations in Iraq.

All that money is being sent to Iraq based on a simple presumption, that Iraq’s government, run by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, is bankrupt and running a massive deficit. The Iraqi government, a caretaker regime now, was created according to a constitution and timetable drawn up under US occupation and is now considered both fragile and corrupt.

But now comes word from independent US Government auditors that the presumption may be false: Iraq's government is not broke at all. Instead, Iraq’s rulers have been sitting on a vast pile of cash while begging for billions of dollars from the US and the international community. A draft report by the General Accountability Office has found that the Maliki government, in spite of proclamations of poverty, hasn't been spending what its budget allotted.

The Nation has obtained the draft summary of the GAO findings. “Iraq generated about $52.1 billion in cumulative budget surpluses,” the GAO draft report says, “through the end of 2009.”

Read more: http://www.thenation.com/article/154639/gao-iraqs-government-requesting-billions-has-billions-surplus