Iraq is building a huge surplus of oil revenues while Americans, saddled with debt from the Iraq war, continue to shoulder a major share of Iraq's reconstruction costs.

A Government Accountability Office report estimates that Iraq will have a surplus of $79 billion, driven by the soaring price of oil felt by Americans at the gas pump. That is about half of the $156 billion Iraq will have taken in from oil sales between 2005 and the end of this year.

Yet, Americans continue to bear a larger burden of rebuilding Iraq. It spent $3.9 billion from 2005 through April of this year on security, oil, electricity and water while the United States has contributed more than $23 billion since the 2003 invasion.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., who requested the report along with Sen. John Warner, R-Va., was quick to question the disparity. "It is inexcusable for U.S. taxpayers to continue to foot the bill for projects the Iraqis are fully capable of funding themselves," said Sen. Levin, chairman of the Armed Services Committee. "We should not be paying for Iraqi projects while Iraqi oil revenues continue to pile up in the bank."

One New York bank held nearly $10 billion of Iraqi deposits that have also been accumulating interest.

Iraqi officials defend their financial commitment to reconstruction programs, citing insecurity and lack of qualified personnel who can carry out the plans and complete projects.

According to the GAO, Iraq spent just 28 percent of its $12 billion reconstruction budget in 2007. In a related matter, the report said that just 1 percent of Iraq's operating expenses from 2005 to 2007 had gone toward maintaining completed reconstruction work.

The GAO report discredits yet another administration pre-war claim intended to muster American support for the invasion along with other administration statements made during the war.

Addressing a House Budget Committee in February 2003, then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz led Americans to believe that the costs of the war would not fall on them. "To assume we're going to pay for it all is just wrong," he said.

In 2003 he also told Congress that "we are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon."

Americans expect Iraq to take a greater responsibility for its own redevelopment.