The cost of the United States engaging in two wars with Iraq has piled up an immense stack of bills that our great grandchildren will still be paying off. The total bill for the latest U.S. military adventure, including direct, future and indirect costs, is estimated at $4 trillion dollars. Direct cost include amounts already spent, future costs include caring for more than two million veterans and indirect cost include such things as interest on the debt incurred to finance the Iraq war adventure.
Of course, let’s not forget the greatest cost to our nation – the loss of many of our best and brightest men and women whose lives were tragically cut short. Almost 5,000 Americans lost their lives with another 33,000 wounded. The cost to the mothers, fathers, wives, husbands and children of those who gave their lives is incalculable as is the future value of the contributions to society that the deceased would have made.
The obvious question, which never seems to be addressed by the Washington elites who capriciously send thousands of our finest to their deaths in continual wars, is “was it worth it?” At various points during the Iraq war, it was speculated that the grateful Iraqis would favor American companies in awarding large contracts for rebuilding infrastructure and developing oil reserves. Some even suggested that Iraq, which has the world’s second largest oil reserves, should partially repay the U.S. with oil for our immense loss of blood and treasure.
For those keeping track, things did not turn out well for the U.S. as China Doubles Down On Iraqi Oil.
A little more than a year after President Barack Obama declared the end of the war in Iraq, Chinese companies are top players in the country’s oil sector. China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) is jointly operating three fields in the south producing 1.4 million barrels a day—more than half Iraq’s output. China and Malaysia have the largest share of international contracts, says Abdul Mahdy al-Ameedi, an official in the Iraqi Oil Ministry. “We are very much satisfied with the work of Chinese companies,” says al-Ameedi, who is in charge of petroleum contracts and licensing.
Now a Chinese oil major may purchase ExxonMobil’s position in the West Qurna 1 field, which has reserves worth $50 billion.
Iraq, which pumps 3 million barrels of crude a day, is expected to reach 8 million barrels by 2035, according to the Paris-based International Energy Agency. By then, 80 percent of Iraqi production will go to China. “Baghdad to Beijing is the new Silk Road of the global oil trade—oil from Baghdad and capital investment from Beijing,” says Fatih Birol, chief economist at the IEA. Chinese construction of power plants has cemented the relationship.
It helps that the Chinese develop fields at lower costs than their rivals, says Wenran Jiang, a political scientist at the University of Alberta who studies China’s energy industry. Chinese managers and engineers usually earn a quarter the wages paid by Western companies, estimates Jiang.
Scoreboard:
- U.S. oil companies got kicked out of Iraq,
- No contracts were given to American companies and American workers for billions of dollars of infrastructure contracts
- Almost all of Iraq’s oil is heading for China.
Where is the outrage by out of touch Washington elites regarding Iraq’s shabby treatment of America? Turns out they are too busy figuring out how to raise taxes and cut benefits for the working middle class that ultimately gets stuck paying for the $4 trillion cost to “help” Iraq.
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