Insurgency soaks up money set for reconstruction

[sabra]

http://www.rednova.com/news/general/203039/insurgency_soaks_up_money_set_for_reconstruction/

Insurgency soaks up money set for reconstruction

TAJI, Iraq (Reuters) - The Iraqi insurgency is damaging U.S. army efforts to leave an impressive array of reconstruction behind as its presence recedes in Iraq, the military says.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, responsible for carrying out some $18.4 billion worth of planned projects across the country, says up to 25 percent of that aid has gone on security to face down relentless violence and sabotage.

Poor electricity and water supply, two of the issues sapping public confidence in the U.S.-backed government, have been directly affected by the unplanned-for redirection of cash, Brigadier-General Bill McCoy said this week.

"Security increases costs by 10-25 percent, so we're not getting our value for money. Security was factored in at a rate of 9 percent -- we didn't know it would be this much," he said on a tour of projects at Taji military base north of Baghdad.

[durablend]

1. Time for another tax cut!

Gotta make sure the rich aren't going to have to be unfairly burdened with the costs of these setbacks!

[alcibiades_mystery]

2. Its presence is receding?

Only in the bizarre language known to experts as RMP2006 - or Republican Midterm Panic 2006. In all other languages, the presence of the US military in Iraq has remained constant for the better part of two years.

[leesa]

3. Right. Wink. Wink. I would check Cheney's pockets first to make sure.

[struggle4progress]

5. "The difference between a looter and a practical politician is ..

.. the difference between the Philadelphia Republican gang and Tammany Hall ... Why, I remember, about fifteen or twenty years ago, a Republican superintendent of the Philadelphia almshouse stole the zinc roof off the buildin’ and sold it for junk. That was carryin' things to excess. There’s a limit to everything, and the Philadelphia Republicans go beyond the limit. It seems like they can’t be cool and moderate like real politicians." - Plunkitt of Tammany Hall

http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5731/

[leftchick]

4. "our value for the money"

400 Billion gone, 1850 US DEAD, 128,000 Iraqis dead and all the US Soldiers are accomplishing every single day is to not become a target. No I would say not a value to be seen. What a fuckhead.

[CBHagman]

6. The administration is failing and yet refuses to change strategy.

Doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result is a sign of insanity, not competence.

Yet the media hasn't really called the administration on their incompetence. The fact is that the Bush administration does, after a fashion, GET WHAT IT WANTS. That doesn't mean it's succeeding.

There's been too much cooing about Bush "standing firm" :eyes: and Rumsfeld's style and other such nonsense. Let't cut the crap. They didn't assemble the necessary allies and troops, didn't arrange to seal the borders, let the looting take place (including of weapons!), underestimated the cost of the war, and basically kept changing their rationale for going to war.

It's worse than a boondoggle, it's a hideous, bloody mess, and we should hang it around the necks of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and their ilk until they draw their final breaths.