It is sad that Iraq has this surplus but their country has such high unemployment. Surely they should be spending some of this surplus to create jobs, as well as improve their military's pay to individual soldiers as they do their dangerous job.
As for them to assume the expense of reconstruction, that wouldn't be fair. We broke it, we invaded their country, it is our bill to pay for everything we blew up.
The big problem I see is we've spent billions on reconstruction but see little results. Too much money is unaccounted for, we didn't hire local labor but let Halliburton and other companies over-charge us for their services. As in the recent example in the news of the deaths and injuries from faulty electrical installations at our bases in Iraq, we are paying too much for too little.

It's quite ironic that $50 billion is also the amount of money the oil companies combined to profit this quarter. So that's roughly $100 billion in proceeds for the select few. Good for them! They really know how to do business.

The Republicans understand economics! That's why they have presided over the greatest transfer of US wealth in history to oil producers and China. That's why US assets are cheap, the dollar cheaper and our grandchildren wage slaves of the foreign owners.

This headline is ridiculous, aren't we trying to create a successful sovereign state in the middle east that isn't dependent upon the money of rogue individuals to survive? In addition to this reality it is also alarmist journalism to describe our economy as "in shambles" seeing that we are still exhibiting growth, albeit only nominally.

Ask McCain. He wants to continue this farce. Neocons wasted American lives and resources on the Iraq War and there has been very, very little return. It is the paramount case of WASTE, FRAUD and ABUSE in our entire history.

how about we send nothing but republicans over to iraq that would serve them right.

"Do you think that America will ever learn"???"

LOL

No. It never has. As long as people in this country think the world has to be what "America" defines it should be, we'll make the same mistakes over and over and over. Until, of course, we can't pay for it anymore.

Maybe that time is shortly coming?

So much for the oil profits paying for us to liberate our oil from Iraqi tyranny.

Howie, I guess the Democrats must "know economic" too. Instead of allowing drilling offshore to keep from having to depend on Iraqi oil, they want to make sure we STAY dependent for fear of "global warming". If Americans drill, they cause global warming. When Iraqi's drill, they don't.

Brilliant, just brilliant. Let's rebuild Iraq while our bridges and other infrastructure is crumbling. We need Iraq off the US welfare payroll - TODAY!

I remember GWB saying that the war would be funded with oil revenues from Iraq. I have yet to see this, so I guess it was just to get us to be ok with spending our money on bombing the heck out of Iraq. I just wonder when we will start getting our rebate checks from Iraq.

Good for Iraq - now our boys can come home!! And now that Iraq has a nice surplus, they can pay for their own defense and also for their own reconstruction.

Didn't Bush say the Iraqis would pay for the entire war with oil revenue? Looks like they not only need to step up and fully take responsibility for their own security they also need to pay us what they owe.

With a new Democratic Administration and Congress, we will see a number of much needed investigations taking place. We will be digging into the rot of the last 8 years for a longtime. This is the last time the cold-war generation puts their hands in politics.

It is a shame that ABC continues to misrepresent the actual events in the War on Terror.

If Iraq starts paying it's own way Bush, Chenny and Haliburton may lose their kick backs!

Remember when Bush and his cronies told us that Iraqi oil revenues would pay for the country's reconstruction? Another scam perpetrated on the American people by Bush's GOP!

How about another article with the heading "Exxon and Chevron sit on a pile of cash while american economy is in shambles". First look in your own backyard before you point fingers at others.

Its bout time people have noticed this...its been goin on for 20+ yrs and only the poor common ppl noticed it...now the rich guys in congress who have been fillin their pockets r starting to feel it and now theyre gonna gripe! well on behalf of the lil ppl in the u.s. boo hoo mr money bags congressman!!

The problem is that Iraq will never be able to jump-start their economy while we remain. The have all that cash just sitting there and high unemployment. Well, the Iraqis could get jobs if the Americans weren't doing them. If Iraqi citizens could be getting paid for what the US troops and contractors are doing that might get the ball rolling.