But Iraq’s oil, though definitely plentiful, is not enough - at least for now. To the war planners’ chagrin, oil coming out of Iraq’s spigots has only been able to fill around one million barrels a day (MBD) - far less than on what the US originally based their plans.

"I don’t believe it’s our job to reconstruct that country after 30 years of centralised Stalinist-like economic controls in that country, says the adamant Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

This coming October 23 to 24, the United States will be sitting down with rich creditor countries, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) during an international donors’ conference on Iraq in Madrid. The IMF, the World Bank and the UN have estimated that Iraq will need US $36 billion for reconstruction within the next four years, in addition to $19 billion for other non-military needs calculated by the American occupation regime. With few options left, the US will be passing the hat. This meeting could be a turning point in the occupation because whether the hat goes back to the US full or not will determine whether the US can afford to stay. The decision of donor countries to cough up cash will depend, in turn, on whether this continues to be a unilateral or multilateral economic takeover of an occupied country. The US is now forced to turn to the creditor countries, including war opponents France and Germany, and international financial institutions (IFIs) because it has nowhere else to go.

The US initially had two options: to turn to the Iraqis or to the American tax-payers. A few weeks after President George W Bush announced the end of "major hostilities" in Iraq, the US managed to pass UN Resolution 1483, which created the so-called UN Development Fund. Under this fund, all of Iraq’s past and future oil revenues, as well as all the assets of the former Iraqi government located anywhere in the world, would be placed under the direct control of the US, as overseen by the IMF and the WB - two institutions in which the US has considerable voting power. The resolution passed the UN Security Council because the US assured Russia, France and China that all contracts entered into by their firms under the UN Oil-for-Foodprogramme during the sanctions regime would be honoured by the
occupation authority and any subsequent interim government.

Aside from financing reconstruction, the fund will be used by the US for leveraging US government guaranteed loans, as well as for directly financing corporate investments in Iraq.
According to a press release by the US Export and Import Bank, the fund will be used for lending money to US companies’ wishing to do business in Iraq. Few risk-averse private banks will willingly give money to any investor applying for a loan to open business in war-torn Iraq. But with the development fund, there’d be lots of money for the daring, adventurous, or simply bargain-hunting types.
And in Iraq, there’d be lots of bargains around. Making use of the Iraqis’ assets for reconstruction means that the Iraqis themselves will be paying for rebuilding what the Americans destroyed.

This is a violation of the Geneva Convention, which unequivocally states that humanitarian assistance, aid, reconstruction and other development expenses are the legal and moral obligation of the occupying forces. The use of the Iraqis’ money to finance the massive privatisation scheme of their economy means that the Iraqis themselves will be paying US corporations to buy off their own assets from them.

But Iraq’s oil, though definitely plentiful, is not enough - at least for now. To the war planners’ chagrin, oil coming out of Iraq’s spigots has only been able to fill around one million barrels a day (MBD) - far less than on what the US originally based their plans. Analysts say it would take another 18 months more before the output could even begin to hit the pre-war production level of 3 MBD, and even longer to surpass it. Add a couple more years to that if the rate at which the pipelines are being sabotaged keeps up. Worse news is that even the multinational oil giants are keeping their distance.

"There has to be a proper security, legitimate authority and a legitimate process ... by which we will be able to negotiate agreements that would be longstanding for decades," Sir Philip Watts, chair of Royal Dutch/Shell, was quoted as saying. "When the legitimate authority is there on behalf of Iraq, we will know and recognise it." Whether Watts considers as legitimate the US-installed GC, one of whose members has already been killed by the Resistance, remains to be seen from the oil industry’s actions.’

If an invader cannot count on the invaded to fund its occupation, then surely it could count on its own tax-payers on whose behalf the invasion was waged in the first place. The Bush administration had just given its richest tax-payers $1.8 trillion in tax cuts, but it cannot afford to spend $20 billion on the people it has just liberated. Just last week, Republicans quashed Democrat efforts to fund the war by raising taxes from the wealthiest Americans - a number of whom will be profiting handsomely from the post-invasion boom in Iraq. Vice President Dick Cheney, who allegedly pushed intelligence agencies to exaggerate their Iraq findings, still maintains financial interests in Halliburton, the Congressional Research Service officially declared recently.

The trade deficit is now hitting the perilous 5 percent mark and still rising; the budget gap has been a quick turnaround from previous years’ promise of uninterrupted surpluses way into the future. At $5 billion a month, the monthly cost of occupying Iraq, excluding reconstruction, is already approaching that of Vietnam.If Bush has not yet been politically broken by the still-to-be-found weapons of mass destruction or the issue of intelligence leaking, his hold over legislators just might snap from this funding question. With what is turning out to be a less than smooth ride for Bush’s funding request, Democrats are calling debates in Congress "the most consequential national security debate in a generation". It is a debate that Bush may not be winning. The US politicians, especially those from the Republican party, are bristling at the idea that the US should pay for restoring the very things it destroyed in Iraq. Republicans are convinced that the US has no obligations to Iraqis whatsoever and that any US funds used in reconstructing Iraq should be treated as loans, not grants.Should this be approved, and chances are high that it will, Iraqis will in effect be borrowing money from the US in order for them to pay back the US corporations that will be rebuilding almost everything in their country - from roads to schools to power generators. Using money borrowed from the US, Iraqis will need to pay the very same corporations that would have had no business in Iraq if there were no war.

Senator Byron Dorgan, who may not have been adequately briefed on the oil situation, insists that the "US should not shoulder the whole burden on its own. Iraq has enough oil to pay for part of the reconstruction effort".

Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is more adamant. "I don’t believe it’s our job to reconstruct that country after 30 years of centralised Stalinist-like economic controls in that country," he said, as though the damage had nothing to do with the cruise missiles and the decade-long embargo. "The infrastructure of that country was not terribly damaged by that war at all," Rumsfeld maintains.

Tax-payers not footing the war bill, however, would be disastrous. Having calculated the cost of war and occupation, Yale University economist William Nordhaus warned long before the war, "If American tax-payers decline to pay the bills for ensuring the long-term health of Iraq, America may leave behind mountains of rubble and mobs of angry people.

But the US won’t be leaving just yet. Having passed the hat to the liberated Iraqis and to the supposed liberators, the American tax-payers, and still not having enough, the US is now turning to the United Nations, the rich creditor nations and IFIs for a fast buck.

In a draft UN resolution that has been tabled at the Security Council but which has been denounced by the usually pliant Secretary General Kofi Annan, the US "appeals to member states and the IFIs to strengthen their efforts to assist the people of Iraq in the reconstruction and development of their economy". It also "calls upon member states and concerned organisations to help meet the needs of the Iraqi people by providing resources necessary for the rehabilitation and reconstruction of Iraq’s economic infrastructure".

However, the latest reports indicate that the US has run into such unbending opposition at the UN that it is abandoning the resolution altogether. That leaves the US with the Madrid option.

In Madrid, the US will be trying to woo countries which opposed the invasion as well IFIs like the World Bank, which has been boasting of its role in financing the reconstruction of conflict areas such as Mozambique, Uganda, East Timor and Palestine - and reaping profits in the form of interest payments in the process. In passing the hat, the US only needs to convince these countries and institutions that what they will be putting in will be money well spent.

So far, it doesn’t look encouraging. As of early October, the European Union was reported to be thinking of giving only a measly $250 million to the pot. This is not even 1 percent of the required total, and US officials are reportedly "shocked" at the amount. Canada, for its part, is willing to share $200 million. Only Japan has been reported to be willing to give a relatively hefty sum of $5 billion, and Japanese officials have been very frank about their reason: their reliance on Middle East oil. Still, when you add all these together, it’s still quite a trifling sum compared to the required $36 billion.

Germany, France and other potential donors, according to the Washington Post, have long indicated that they will only be bringing money to the table if their companies are given more opportunities to take part in the multi-billion dollar post-war reconstruction bonanza in Iraq. They will be more willing to cough up cash if they will be assured that their corporations will not be shut out of Iraq by US corporations. In other words, the potential donors will only be signing checks in Madrid as long as their corporations are assured of getting invitations during the slicing of the cake.

So far, they’ve had to settle for crumbs. US Federal Procurement laws decree that government contracts for Iraq can only go to US corporations which, in turn, are free to hire sub-contractors as they deem fit. This current division of spoils could change, however, depending on whether some governments are able to wrangle for more concessions in exchange for giving money to the occupation effort. Surely, creditor nations will insist
on a good bang for their buck. The meeting in Madrid will not be a charity ball.

What the donor government negotiators will be bringing in their pockets to Madrid, however, will not be their personal money nor that of the corporations, but that of their country’s tax-payers. The Madrid meeting is an effort by the US to transfer the burden of Iraq from the Americans to, say, French, Japanese and German tax-payers. Borrowing from the IMF and the World Bank on behalf of the Iraqi people will pass the liability to future Iraqi
generations, who will then be indebted to the IFIs and subjected to their conditions. For the burden they’ll bear, others will be reaping the profits.