WASHINGTON, Oct. 5 (UPI) -- A Pentagon task force secret report prepared last fall on Iraqi oil production was at odds with what Bush Administration officials said in the spring.
The report said oil production facilities had been so damaged oil production had fallen by more than 25 percent.
However, Bush Administration officials told Congress during the war that "we are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon," The New York Times reported.
"The problem is this," L. Paul Bremer III, the top U.S. civilian administrator in Iraq, testified to Congress two weeks ago. "The oil infrastructure was severely run down over the last 20 years, and partly because of sanctions over the last decade."
Bremer now estimates that Iraq's total oil revenues from the last half of 2003 to 2005 will amount to $35 billion, or about $14 billion a year.
