Does Rohrabacher Speak For The US?

BAGHDAD: A US congressman visiting Baghdad has sparked Iraqi anger by suggesting that Iraq pay back the United States for the money it has spent in the eight years since the US-led invasion in 2003.
Representative Dana Rohrabacher spoke during a one-day visit by a group of six US Congress members. The California Republican said he raised the suggestion during a meeting with Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki that some day when Iraq is a “prosperous” country it pay back the US for everything that it has done here.
“We would hope that some consideration be given to repaying the United States some of the megadollars we have spent here in the last eight years,” Rohrabacher told reporters at the US embassy after the meeting.
He did not say what reaction, if any, the prime minister had to the suggestion.
However, Iraqi government spokesman Ali Al Dabbagh said Rohrabacher’s reported comments were “irresponsible.”
“Those people are not welcome in Iraq. They are raising a controversial issue which influences the strategic relation between us and the United States,” he said.
“They are asking for compensation for the war and we are not committed to pay anything to any of the people who participated in the invasion of Iraq,” he told Reuters.
Dabbagh said Rohrabacher had not expressed this opinion when he met Maliki.
He added he had called the US embassy in Iraq when he learned of the congressman’s comments at the news conference but was told by the embassy that Rohrabacher’s statement represented his own opinion and not the official position of the United States.
The idea of repaying the United States for a war that the vast majority of Iraqis had no role in bringing about would likely gain little traction with an Iraqi public that harbours mixed emotions about the US invasion.
While many Iraqis are glad to be rid of Saddam Hussein, they blame the United States for the chaos and sectarian violence that followed.
The Baghdad city government earlier this year demanded the US pay $1 billion for damage caused to the city by blast walls erected during the war.
There are currently about 47,000 American forces in Iraq.
Discussion is intensifying about whether Iraq will ask American troops to stay past the Dec.31 deadline for their departure..
Leon Panetta, who has been nominated to take over the Pentagon, said earlier last week during a confirmation hearing that Iraq would likely ask the US to keep some American troop presence past 2011.Spokesman Dabbagh said on Friday a meeting headed by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani could be held next week to discuss the sensitive issue.
While overall violence has fallen sharply in Iraq since the peak of sectarian warfare in 2006-2007, Iraqi security forces continue to fight a weakened but still lethal insurgency.
Bombings and other attacks occur daily.
The total of US military casualties in Iraq since 2003 stands at 4,459, according to the icasualties.org website.
In the biggest single loss of life since 2009, five US soldiers were killed in a rocket attack on a Baghdad base on Monday and another US soldier was killed in southern Iraq on Wednesday, the US military said.