Iraqi parliament session on election law postponed (Roundup)

Projected $80 billion Iraqi budget surplusAug 6th, 2008 - 03:13:41

www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/08/05/iraq.oil/?iref=hpmostpop

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Iraq is raking in more money from oil exports than it is spending, amassing a projected four-year budget surplus of up to $80 billion, U.S. auditors reported Tuesday.

Leading members of Congress, noting that Washington is paying for reconstruction in Iraq, expressed outrage at the assessment. One called the findings 'inexcusable.'

'We should not be paying for Iraqi projects while Iraqi oil revenues continue to pile up in the bank, including outrageous profits from $4-a-gallon gas prices in the U.S.,' said Sen. Carl Levin, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. 'We should require that U.S. taxpayers be reimbursed for the cost of large projects.'

Baghdad had a $29 billion budget surplus between 2005 to 2007. With the price of crude roughly doubling in the past year, Iraq's surplus for 2008 is expected to run between $38 billion and $50 billion, according to a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

The United States has put about $48 billion toward reconstruction since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, auditors reported. About $23 billion of that was spent on the oil and electricity industries, water systems and security.

In 2003, then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz told the House Appropriations Committee: 'We're dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.''

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-California, said Tuesday's report 'is going to make a lot of American families very angry.' 'The record gas prices they are paying have turned into an economic windfall for Iraq, but the Iraqi government isn't spending the money on rebuilding,' said Waxman, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

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