THIS MUST RESONATE WITH THE GOP'S BASE

Otherwise, Kyl wouldn't have said this. I like how this report begins by pointing out that Petraeus was wrong about southern Iraq.

Petraeus set to address Congress on Iraq
Petraeus Set to Defend Iraq Plan as Democrats Attack (Update1)
By Ken Fireman

April 7 (Bloomberg) -- Last September, U.S. Army General David Petraeus assured Congress that Iraqis would be able to end the bloody rivalry between Shiite groups in the oil-rich south by themselves.

Late last month, the U.S. carried out air strikes to help struggling Iraqi troops fighting a Shiite militia for control of the southern city of Basra.

Here's the (ahem) money part:

Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat who chairs the Armed Services Committee, said Iraq has stashed billions of dollars of ``surplus funds'' in foreign banks.

Funding `Outrage'

``It is an outrage that we continue to pay for the reconstruction of Iraq, that we continue to pay for the training of the Iraqi army, while we are laying out tens of billions of dollars in extra money being paid for gasoline, some of which comes from Iraq, at three and a half dollars a gallon,'' Levin told reporters April 4.

A senior Republican senator, Jon Kyl of Arizona, said today that members of his party share that concern, while cautioning that lawmakers should wait for all the facts before moving to legislate on the subject.

``We don't want the Iraqis foisting the bill on the back of American taxpayers when they have the funds to put toward these reconstruction efforts themselves,'' he told reporters in a conference call.