Bush Sees Oil as Key to Restoring Stability in Iraq

I did a double-take when I saw that headline from the New York Times' David Sanger, but nearly fell out of my chair when I read his first paragraph:

President Bush proposed today that Iraq create a national fund to use its oil revenues for national projects, as part of a strategy to build loyalty to the new government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.

Really!? Sanger goes on [emphasis mine]:

This is not the first time that Mr. Bush and his aides have suggested that oil could be a solution to many of Iraq's problems: Before the war, Paul D. Wolfowitz, then the deputy secretary of defense, suggested that oil revenues could pay for Iraqi reconstruction. So far, that has not happened.

I'm getting really frustrated. This plan could have been executed a long time ago, and Bush is fully to blame. See Naomi Klein's September 2004 Harper's piece for more.