LAT: Everyone Wants a Piece of the $18-Billion Man in Iraq

[DeepModem Mom]

THE CONFLICT IN IRAQ
Everyone Wants a Piece of the $18-Billion Man in Iraq
Rebuilding czar from U.S. has little to show for efforts. Better times are coming, he says.

By T. Christian Miller, Times Staff Writer


....Retired Rear Adm. David Nash gives the same answer to the skeptics who quiz him on America's long-delayed effort to rebuild Iraq: Better times are coming....

***

New and refurbished power stations are starting up weekly. Private contractors are finishing plans for building thousands of schools, clinics and infrastructure projects. Iraqi jobs in the program have soared from 5,300 daily employees to more than 88,000.

But at least for now, there is little to show on the ground. Less than $900 million has been spent of $18.4 billion that Congress approved in November. Of 2,800 projects designed to make life better for Iraqis — and in the process, safer for U.S. soldiers — only 214 are under construction.

Ordinary Iraqis and U.S. officials have expressed growing concern that although the U.S. aid is finally arriving, it may have come too late to win the sympathy of the people, who have endured more than a year of haphazard electricity, water and other essential services....


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-rebuild23aug23,1,7271308.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[truthisfreedom]

1. i'd be beyond pissed if i was an Iraqi waiting for basics for this long.

Quagmire.

[priller]

2. Kick! Superb article

Over a year later, and all our mighty contractors have done next to nothing. But most importantly, they have NO LEADERSHIP!

This Nash guy is a true by-the-book, follow-orders-at-all-times, reality-ignoring jar head. I loved this part, from the State Department official overseeing rebuilding in Najaf:

"It's important that we raise some earth," Smith pleaded with Nash. "Najaf's need is immediate. It's big. We need to move quickly to make sure we don't lose them again. It's in our national interests to win their hearts and minds."

"What we need to have is the authority and autonomy to make it work," said Smith, upset by what he called redundancies and waste.

But does this have an effect on Nash?

Nash...is widely regarded as a man who plays by the book, competent and careful.

So far, Iraq's realities have not shaken his intent on following Washington's rules.

"Autonomy scares me…. Nobody has autonomy," he told Smith. "There's some boundaries we have to live with whether we like it or not."

What *should* be scaring Nash is not autonomy but the fact that they've accomplished precious little and the people are pissed off. THAT'S the problem.

[Barrett808]

3. "New and refurbished power stations are starting up weekly"?

I find this very difficult to believe.

[mazzarro]

5. I agree! I think this is more for domestic consumption and bears

little resemblance to realities in Iraq - IMHO

[fishnfla]

4. Harper's magazine has an excellent article detailing this failure

(not available online sorry, hit the newstand)

Basically Bremer tried to privatize the rebuilding of Iraq by opening up the country to foreign invstors. The prize was US money. At first he violated international law by trying to sell off Iraqi firms. The legal advisors of the investors said no way. They found a way around that by instituting the interim goverment. When the foreignors started coming into the country last spring,and the Iraqi's saw their jobs were being out sourced, they went ballastic (literally). Thats when you started seeing all the foreignors killed and kidnapped. Now the foreign firms all pulled out and cannot get insurance for their employees.

Its such a clusternut, I tell you, there is a great line from the article. The neocons promised Iraq would be the greatest place on earth to do business,and now insurance companies are rating it as the worse. they dreamed of utopia and created the opposite