This week, international experts enlisted by the American-led occupation authorities estimated that the loss of oil revenues and cost of operating a civilian government in Iraq is projected at $20 billion for 2004.
That figure was given to diplomats from potential donor nations in Brussels this week, and by all accounts they were stunned.
“Think of it this way,” said an official familiar with the Brussels session. “You’d be putting more than a third of the world’s development assistance in 2004 into a country with the second largest oil reserves in the world. Imagine what that does to the rest of the poor countries in the world. All of Africa doesn’t get that much money.” (My emphasis)

Um, yes. Just imagine what all those poverty-stricken countries in Africa might do about health care, social infrastructure and education with even 25% of that money. To paraphrase Blofeld or Goldfinger or one of those Bond villains: “Very clever, Mister Bush.”
That comes on top of this particular item, too: Gen. Abizaid published an internal report within DoD a year ago; it essentially predicted the situation the Army faces in Iraq right now (For predictions, scroll down to the bottom; I recommend reading the whole article). Was any attention given to it? Apparently not. (link via Josh Marshall.)