A sad summation
In early 2003, proponents of the war in the Bush administration said the entire effort might cost as little as $50 to $60 billion. Iraq was though to be capable of producing 3.5 million barrels of oil a day in short order, with that jumping to 6 million barrels a day or more in a few years’ time. At current oil prices, that could have meant over $130 billion a year in oil money.
Now the U.S. will pour over $100 billion this year into the country, torn apart by a bloody three-year war, while oil production remains below pre-war levels. The latest EIA estimate said Iraq was pumping 1.9 million barrels per day.
“The fields are still there,” said Manouchehr Takin, an energy analyst at the Center for Global Energy Studies in London, who also added that vast parts of the country are still unexplored. “It’s the politics that have degraded.”</i>
And that rather aptly sums up the entire Iraqi fiasco.
