Studies: Iraq costs US $12B per month

[cliftonite]

Originally posted by: Genx87
Here is an even better idea. If we didnt have the war. That 12 billion could be given back to the tax payers. I bet that clenched the liberals aholes pretty tight thinking of the economic freedom alloted to the taxpayers.

Why would they need to give back if it never needed to be taken

 

[Modelworks]

CNN is doing a story tommorrow on iraqi oil and where the money is going from it.

Apparrently oil smugling is rampant in iraq.

 

[jpeyton]

Brilliant Comic On The Subject

The media is really pulling an all-out assault on the Iraq war during this political cycle. They don't even need to put out hit pieces on McCain; his support of the war alone will sink him.

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: Modelworks
CNN is doing a story tommorrow on iraqi oil and where the money is going from it.

Apparrently oil smugling is rampant in iraq.

I'd like to see if blame is laid at the USA's feet. If it is it's pure hatred for America. We turned over somplete control to Iraq. So, if there IS smuggling going on, it's on them.

 

[brandonbull]

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: brandonbull

Originally posted by: blackangst1

Originally posted by: brandonbull
That $12B/month could be put to use ensuring the US could rid itself of foreign oil dependence.

And that would justify the debt? Public debt is OK as long as it's not for Iraq? I wonder how many poeple think that.

And you think it costs more or less than $12B/month to import foreign oil? I wonder how many people think like that?

I guess some people don't wish to be a little forward thinking and help the US develop new technologies that will rid us of those ME oil leeches and be a new export source.

uh...nothing to do with MY comments, but OK. Sure some people dont want to move off of oil, but alot of people like myself DO, but also are realistic enough to know the panic about running out is bullshit, and fossil fuel is the most energy efficient on earth now. We have HUGE oil fields we havent even drilled, that we could. Hybrid cars make us FEEEELLLL good, but the fact that they take 25% more energy to make makes them inefficient, except for those who buy them.

Anyway. Back to the topic, sure 12B/month can be better spent I suppose, but only if growth and income keep up.

$12B/month would not be a permenant proposition for new energy development. Not only would the US not need to import Oil, we could have a great new export that other countries could not afford to develop.

Those huge oil fields would only supply a small amount of oil and if would take years to develop. The US automotive fleet could be completely replaced and alternative fuel sources would available before those huge oil fields could help.

What financial incentive do/did automakers have to completly redesign their automotive powerplants? Gas guzzling vechicles sold just fine so there wasn't a good business reason to change to use something else.

 

[MonkeyK]

Originally posted by: event8horizon
quit thinking so shor term people-

Iraq has 115 billion barrels of known oil reserves. That is more than five times the total in the United States. And, because of its long isolation, it is the least explored of the world?s oil-rich nations. A mere two thousand wells have been drilled across the entire country; in Texas alone there are a million. It has been estimated, by the Council on Foreign Relations, that Iraq may have a further 220 billion barrels of undiscovered oil; another study puts the figure at 300 billion. If these estimates are anywhere close to the mark, US forces are now sitting on one quarter of the world?s oil resources. The value of Iraqi oil, largely light crude with low production costs, would be of the order of $30 trillion at today?s prices. For purposes of comparison, the projected total cost of the US invasion/occupation is around $1 trillion.


http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n20/holt01_.html

after a couple of trillion (after the war ends + all the equipment fixes) the payoff is 30 trillion.

1 trillion would have been an incredible investment in clean energy research and infrastructure.

 

[JS80]

I don't understand why we don't just take Iraq's oil to pay for all this.

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: blackangst1

uh...nothing to do with MY comments, but OK. Sure some people dont want to move off of oil, but alot of people like myself DO, but also are realistic enough to know the panic about running out is bullshit, and fossil fuel is the most energy efficient on earth now. We have HUGE oil fields we havent even drilled, that we could. Hybrid cars make us FEEEELLLL good, but the fact that they take 25% more energy to make makes them inefficient, except for those who buy them.

Anyway. Back to the topic, sure 12B/month can be better spent I suppose, but only if growth and income keep up.

The problem with running out of oil isn't that we would actually... you know... run out of oil. The problem is as we're seeing now is more the whole 'peak oil' thing. Supply is proving unable to keep up with demand and that's going to make oil hideously expensive in the relatively near future. It's not that we won't have oil, it's that it will cost so much that we'll be screwed.

 

[bamacre]

Iraq has been piled on top of this.

We need to be grossly cutting spending, not grossly increasing it.

We are going bankrupt. To ignore the potential will only make it inevitable.

 

[freegeeks]

Originally posted by: JS80
I don't understand why we don't just take Iraq's oil to pay for all this.

because you are there for freedom and democracy, not for oil

 

[bamacre]

Originally posted by: JS80
I don't understand why we don't just take Iraq's oil to pay for all this.

And when the Iraqi people fight to defend it? Slaughter them?

 

[Nebor]

Originally posted by: JS80
I don't understand why we don't just take Iraq's oil to pay for all this.

THe infrastructure isn't in place to take the oil. We're working on it. We will get paid, in blood or oil.