Hayes: Iraqis Destroyed Their Own Country ‘Far Worse Than Any Damage We Did During The War’

Yesterday, Weekly Standard senior writer — and Cheney biographer — Stephen Hayes appeared on CNN and defended the Bush administration’s ineffective reconstruction in Iraq, claiming that the infrastructure there was “deplorable” long before the U.S. invasion:

HAYES: The state of the Iraqi infrastructure before we went in, before we dropped one bomb was deplorable. It was far worse than any damage that we did during the war.

CAFFERTY: Are you suggesting that a five year war has helped things over there?

HAYES: No, I’m not suggesting a five year war has helped things, necessarily, although the reconstruction has. But most of the damage that was done to the Iraqi infrastructure was done well before the U.S. came.

Watch it:

Infrastructure in Iraq certainly wasn’t perfect before the U.S. invasion. But Hayes’s claim that the war had barely any effect is completely false. Some examples:

– Education: According to a 2005 analysis by the United Nations University, since the 2003 invasion, 84 percent of Iraq’s higher education institutions had been “burnt, looted or destroyed.”

– Medical Care: Before the U.S. invasion, there were 34,000 doctors registered in Iraq; an estimated 20,000 have left since then. “It’s definitely worse now than before the war,” Eman Asim, a Ministry of Health official who oversees the country’s 185 public hospitals, told the New York Times in 2004.

– Electricity: Although the average hours of electricity each day across Iraq have increased since the invasion, the number in Baghdad has decreased to 10.6 hours each day, down from 16-24 before the war.

– Oil Production: Since the U.S. invasion, Iraq’s oil infrastructure has been hampered by post-conflict sabotage, with more than 450 attacks on its pipelines. Only as recently as May has Iraq been able to return to its pre-war crude oil production levels.

During his CNN appearance, Hayes used his argument that infrastructure damage was not America’s fault to argue that Iraqis should foot the bill. But that’s not the reason Iraqis should have more responsibility. The war has exacerbated Iraq’s infrastructure problems, yet U.S. taxpayers are still entitled to some accountability. As Matt Duss explains at the Wonk Room:

While I think there’s no escaping the financial responsibility that Americans have incurred by invading and occupying Iraq, American taxpayers have a right to ask why, given its substantial oil revenues, the Iraqi government isn’t dedicating more of that money to rebuilding its country. [...]

[J]ust as the Bush committed tens of thousands of American troops to the Iraq war with no plan for winning the peace, so they’ve committed tens of billions of American dollars to various Iraqi construction projects with no real plan for how all of it’s supposed to add up to a stable Iraqi state.

During the segment, Gloria Borger of U.S. News said that the United States should “be reimbursed for years of support. I don’t just think they should just start ponying up now.” Maybe Iraqis should just pay us for invading their country too?

(HT: Heather)

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Transcript:

BLITZER: Let’s discuss this and more. Joining us, our senior political analyst Gloria Borger, our own Jack Cafferty, and Steve Hayes, the senior writer for “The Weekly Standard.” They’re all part of the best political team on television.

Jack, you know, a lot of people hear this and their blood starts to boil.

CAFFERTY: Well, understandably so. It’s much more than the $50 billion. We’ve spent $700 billion or $800 billion on this — on this war. The Iraqis could say hey, we didn’t ask you guys to invade. You came over here, invaded our country, blew up our infrastructure, killed a couple of hundred thousand of our people, maybe you should pay to fix it.

The thing that really gets up my nose is somebody like Carl Levin sitting there expressing this moral outrage. The Democrats in 2006 said give us the majority in the House and Senate, we will end the war. We will cut off funding for the war. We will bring the troops home.

Well, that was a bald-faced lie. And to sit here two years later and try to grab the high ground on $50 billion worth of reconstruction costs when you did nothing to end this war two years ago, after you told us you would, I ain’t buying it.

BLITZER: You know, Obama spoke out on this. He was outraged today, Gloria.

And the McCain people, I take it they’re beginning to respond now, as well?

GLORIA BORGER, SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, I just got off the phone with a spokesman for John McCain, Wolf. And, of course, they’re saying that this is all due to the success of the surge. That’s pretty predictable. And they also say sort of like what the White House says — American troops and American taxpayers have borne the lion’s share of the costs of fighting Al Qaeda and Iranian-backed extremists in Iraq. Now it is time for the government of Iraq to take grarter responsibility to build on the progress to date, which remain fragile and reversible.

So they’re saying OK, they’d better pony up now, but reminding you that, of course, this progress is fragile, so you can’t do what Barack Obama wants to do, which is to get out.

BLITZER: What do you…

BORGER: That’s their…

BLITZER: All right, Steve, as you look at this — and you’ve studied this subject for a long time — they have, what, $80 billion sitting around simply in banks.

STEPHEN HAYES, SENIOR WRITER AT “THE WEEKLY STANDARD”: Yes. It’s a pretty remarkable report. I mean it’s not every day that I find myself agreeing with Carl Levin.

But I think Jack is wrong on this. I think Carl Levin is right. It’s pretty outrageous that the Iraqis, you know, effectively have lockboxes all over the world holding this surplus. It made sense, I think for a while for the United States to be careful about how much of a burden — a financial burden we put on Iraq, as Iraq got the oil sector going and things of that nature. But now you’re at a point where the country is stabilized in terms of its violence, for the most part, and Iraqis should be contributing more.

I don’t think you’re going to find very many people in Washington who will disagree with the findings of this report…

BORGER: Well, and by the…

HAYES: …or suggest that they shouldn’t.

BORGER: We have a $482 billion deficit coming up in this country. So I think we should be reimbursed for years of support. I don’t just think they should just start ponying up now.

CAFFERTY: Well, I mean…

BORGER: I think it needs to be retroactive.

CAFFERTY: Who caused the damage to the infrastructure to begin with?

HAYES: Well, I’d disagree with you on that, Jack. The state of the Iraqi infrastructure before we went in, before we dropped one bomb was deplorable. It was far worse than any damage that we did during the war.

CAFFERTY: Are you suggesting that a five year war has helped things over there?

HAYES: No, I’m not suggesting a five year war has helped things, necessarily, although the reconstruction has. But most of the damage that was done to the Iraqi infrastructure was done well before the U.S. came. And you could complain that the U.S. intelligence community missed a lot of that, didn’t know it, whereas journalists who were in country knew about the state of the infrastructure. We really didn’t.

BLITZER: You know, it…

BORGER: But…

CAFFERTY: Just like the WMD, right?

HAYES: Well, they missed that, too.