WASHINGTON - Think you're being gouged by Big Oil? U.S. troops in Iraq are paying almost as much as Americans back home, despite burning fuel at staggering rates in a war to stabilize a country known for its oil reserves.
Military units pay an average of $3.23 a gallon for gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, some $88 a day per service member in Iraq, according to an Associated Press review and interviews with defense officials. A penny or two increase in the price of fuel can add millions of dollars to U.S. costs.
Critics in Congress are fuming. The U.S., they say, is getting suckered as the cost of the war exceeds half a trillion dollars — $10.3 billion a month, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Some lawmakers say oil-rich allies in the Middle East should be doing more to subsidize fuel costs because of the stake they have in a secure Iraq. Others point to Iraq's own burgeoning surplus as crude oil prices top $100 a barrel. Subsidies let Iraqis pay only about $1.36 a gallon.
The U.S. military, through its Defense Energy Support Center, buys fuel on the open market, paying from $1.99 a gallon to as much as $5.30 a gallon under contracts with private and government-owned oil companies. The center then sets a fixed rate for troops, currently $3.51 a gallon for diesel, $3.15 for gasoline, $3.04 for jet fuel and $13.61 for a high-octane fuel used mostly in unmanned aerial vehicles.
Kuwait does grant substantial subsidies, but they cover only about half the fuel used by the U.S. in Iraq. And the discount is eaten up by the Energy Support Center's administrative costs and fluctuations in the market.
Overall, the military consumes about 1.2 million barrels, or more than 50 million gallons of fuel, each month in Iraq at an average $127.68 a barrel. That works out to about $153 million a month.
Think about it for a moment. The U.S. military is stuck in an endless war in Iraq. The Middle East private and government-owned oil companies are more than happy to charge the Pentagon whatever they feel is the market price for gas that day--remember, the Pentagon is buying 50 million gallons of fuel a month on the open market. And while some suppliers are charging a low price of around $1.99 a gallon, and others are charging over $5.00 a gallon, the prices average out to around $3.23 a gallon for gas. If the U.S. military doesn't purchase their gas from these Middle Eastern energy suppliers, you can bet that there will be a lot of U.S. military trucks, tanks, helicopters, and airplanes sitting with empty gas tanks. You can also bet that the Bush administration will not do a damn thing about this issue of high gas prices for the Pentagon--private suppliers gathering around the American taxpayer trough to pig out on their fill!
We need to get out of Iraq.
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