U.S. officially giving up on Iraq reconstruction.

Shorter Bush administration: Fuck you, you ungrateful ragheads.

FLIP-FLOP? Over at Think Progress, Faiz points out that cutting off the funding for further reconstruction comes only a month after the Bush administration's "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq" which promised, among other things, to "Restore Iraq’s infrastructure to meet increasing demand and the needs of a growing economy."

From public promise to complete betrayal in one month. Even for this administration, that has to be some kind of record. Thank God those folks have their purple fingers to keep them company.

AFTERTHOUGHT: The more I think about this, the confuseder I get. From back in 2003, we have Andrew Natsios insisting that the entire cost to the U.S. of the rebuilding of Iraq was going to be no more than $1.7 billion but, more importantly (emphasis added):

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.

So ... the rebuilding of Iraq to the point where it can pay for its own reconstruction through oil revenues will take "several years" and yet, it's only 2.5 years later and the U.S. has already given up on reconstruction, while the WaPo article points out that Iraqi oil production still hasn't even reached pre-war levels:

Oil production stands at roughly 2 million barrels a day, compared with 2.6 million before U.S. troops entered Iraq in March 2003, according to U.S. government statistics.

So, if I may summarize (and there's really no way you can stop me at this point, is there?), Iraqi oil production is not even at pre-war levels but the Iraqis are now expected to pick up the slack and take it from there, while trying not to be killed by either the insurgency or American troops and after the Bush administration has just told Iraq that it's not getting any more financial help. And the Iraqis have to do all this with only sporadic access to electricity, water and sanitation services, while picking their way carefully through a landscape contaminated by depleted uranium.

Do I have that about right?