Security Spending Increases In Iraq

[maddezmom]

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 30, 2004; Page A30


Security in Iraq has become such a pressing concern that the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority is increasing by more than $500 million the amount to be spent on new protective forces and facilities as it prepares to transfer limited authority to an interim Iraqi government on June 30.

Responding to what it described as the "recent upswing in violence," the occupation authority's Program Review Board, which has the final word on spending Iraqi oil money, approved a $500 million fund last month to meet "the urgent need for increased security as Iraqi sovereignty approaches," according to official notes from the meeting. The money will be used for "security-related reconstruction and military needs" that are still to be decided, the notes say.

The authority has made a range of other recent security moves and expenditures. They include requiring security contractors that protect its convoys to add more armored vehicles to their guard fleets; spending $42.5 million in April to buy more body armor; and, last week, seeking kits to reinforce 200 new Chevrolet, GMC and Ford sport-utility vehicles. The armor plates and transparent antiballistic glass must resist rifle bullets fired from 10 feet and small hand grenades, according to the occupation authority's request for proposals.

The increasing focus on security reflects not just the danger faced by civilian contractors for the authority and Iraqi officials, but also the importance to the U.S.-led authority of curbing violence and fostering greater stability in the weeks before and months after the interim Iraqi government begins work June 30. The authority is also racing the clock to put new protections in place because it will dissolve on that date.
~snip~
more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1488-2004May29.html

The upswing? When was the downswing? :eyes:

[mom cat]

1. What about increasing the security of the Iraqi people?

Their main security threat is us.

[maddezmom]

2. Unchecked Lawlessness Stresses Iraqi Society

By Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, May 30, 2004; Page A30


BAGHDAD -- The report of his death found Abdulsemi Janabi in a meeting. His cell phone chirped, and through her sobs his wife told him that a radio station had just reported that his head had been found in one part of Baghdad, his body in another.



Janabi, a dean at Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, assured his wife that he remained in one piece, safe and sound. He was on campus, sitting opposite a group of angry Shiite students demanding a prayer room and an office. In that moment, Janabi decided to take their demands more seriously.

~snip~

Violence, and the fear of it, defined everyday life in occupied Iraq long before the current insurgency. Ambushes, kidnappings and militias -- all the dangers lurking for Western visitors since last month -- emerged as dangers for many of Baghdad's 5 million residents shortly after the city fell in April 2003.

In the months that followed, while car bombs and attacks on U.S. forces grabbed the headlines, a relentless sense of insecurity eroded the patience of Iraqis, 92 percent of whom agreed that "freedom and democracy are meaningless without peace and security," according to a poll conducted in January for the Coalition Provisional Authority.

~snip~
more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1424-2004May29.html

[maddezmom]

3. Exhausted by the Daily Grind, Iraqis Pay Little Heed to Politics

By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, May 30, 2004; Page A29


BAGHDAD, May 29 -- From behind trays stacked high with honey-soaked sweets, Dhiya Mohammedawi cracked a shy smile when asked about Ayad Allawi. He had something he wanted to say, all right, but it was not about Iraq's prime minister-designate and his new interim government.



"We're not spending our time worrying about the Governing Council or the prime minister, things like that," said Mohammedawi, looking over a largely deserted counter at Baghdad's renowned Abu Afif Sweet Shop. "What we worry about is electricity, gasoline and that kind of stuff."

Baghdad residents talked Saturday of Allawi's surprise nomination to become prime minister as if it were a distant event, not of their making and not very important in their lives. Keeping private generators humming to bolster the still-faulty electricity network, lining up for hours to top off the gas tank, staying safe among the car bombs and seeking some way to make a living in a country ripped up by war -- these were the priorities they said were on their minds.

When Saddam Hussein was president, Iraqis were used to regarding their government as forbidden territory, a place where only Hussein's family and Baath Party loyalists were allowed to tread. To a large extent, they have retained that outlook during a year of U.S.-led occupation. They feel powerless to affect decisions made in the heavily guarded Green Zone, where American occupation authorities live and work. Conversations on Saturday indicated little expectation that things would change on June 30, when the United States is scheduled to turn over some self-governing authority to Iraqis.

For most people in Baghdad, the daily grind of getting by also leaves little time for anything else.

~snip~
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1637-2004May29.html

[teryang]

4. Futile but profitable expenditures

They might save a life here and there but they are hardly cost effective. Nor are they are technological fix to the wrongness of our presence.

"Iraqi oil money will go to the reconstruction of Iraq," equals Iraqi oil money will go to American security contractors.