Christopher Hitchens, on things, Iraq, reminds us of the day when then-Deputy Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz, was nearly laughed out of Congressional hearings for suggesting that the reconstruction of Iraq might  be financed by Iraq.  Today, the country is running a surplus of nearly $79 billion.

More:

"It is in no spirit of revenge that I remind you that, as little as a year ago, the whole of smart liberal opinion believed that the dissolution of Baathism and militarism had been a mistake, that Iraq itself was a bottomless pit of wasted dollars and pointless casualties, and that the only option was to withdraw as fast as possible and let the inevitable civil war burn itself out. To the left of that liberal consensus, people of the caliber and quality of Michael Moore were describing the nihilist "insurgents" as the moral equivalent of the Minutemen, and to the right of the same consensus, people like Pat Buchanan were hinting that we had been cheated into the whole enterprise by a certain minority whose collective name began with the letter J."

Expect no "my bad."  But read the article here.