Rebuilding Iraq A Billion At A Time
The Bush administration boasts of its ability to rebuild Iraq thus aiding in the ultimate goal of “bringing democracy to the savages”. (Remember this is the administration that was responsible for getting relief to New Orleans after Katrina!) Here is a story from the New York Times about how your tax dollars are being put to work for world peace! Please note that the Americans decided what projects to undertake and what resources to put where without so much as the tip of a hat to the Iraqis. Please, it is time for regime change in Washington!
New York Times, James Glanz, July 28th
Iraq’s national government is refusing to take possession of thousands of American-financed reconstruction projects, forcing the United States either to hand them over to local Iraqis, who often lack the proper training and resources to keep the projects running, or commit new money to an effort that has already consumed billions of taxpayer dollars.
The conclusions, detailed in a report released Friday by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, a federal oversight agency, include the finding that of 2,797 completed projects costing $5.8 billion, Iraq’s national government had, by the spring of this year, accepted only 435 projects valued at $501 million. Few transfers to Iraqi national government control have taken place since the current Iraqi government, which is frequently criticized for inaction on matters relating to the American intervention, took office in 2006.
The United States often promotes the number of rebuilding projects, like power plants and hospitals, that have been completed in Iraq, citing them as signs of progress in a nation otherwise fraught with violence and political stalemate. But closer examination by the inspector general’s office, headed by Stuart W. Bowen Jr., has found that a number of individual projects are crumbling, abandoned or otherwise inoperative only months after the United States declared that they had been successfully completed. The United States always intended to hand over projects to the Iraqi government when they were completed. Click here to read more in the New York Times.