April 23, 2007, on this blog: Happy Andrew Natsios Day
On April 23, 2003, host Ted Koppel invited Natsios, then the director of the U.S. Agency for International Development, on the program to talk about the Bush administration’s estimate of the cost of rebuilding Iraq.
ANDREW NATSIOS: This is $1.7 billion.
TED KOPPEL (Off Camera): All right, this is the first. I mean, when you talk about 1.7, you’re not suggesting that the rebuilding of Iraq is gonna be done for $1.7 billion?
ANDREW NATSIOS: Well, in terms of the American taxpayers contribution, I do, this is it for the US. The rest of the rebuilding of Iraq will be done by other countries who have already made pledges, Britain, Germany, Norway, Japan, Canada, and Iraqi oil revenues, eventually in several years, when it’s up and running and there’s a new government that’s been democratically elected, will finish the job with their own revenues. They’re going to get in $20 billion a year in oil revenues. But the American part of this will be 1.7 billion. We have no plans for any further-on funding for this.
How wrong was Natsios and the rest of the Bush administration?
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will ultimately cost the United States anywhere between $4 and $6 trillion, when the total cost, including long-term care for the war’s veterans, is calculated, says a new report from a top Harvard researcher that was released [in March 2013].
Plus: It has also now been 10 years since Charles Krauthammer wrote this:
Hans Blix had five months to find weapons [of mass destruction in Iraq]. He found nothing. We’ve had five weeks. Come back to me in five months. If we haven’t found any, we will have a credibility problem.
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