'Marshall Plan' for Iraq Fades

[UpInArms]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-aid15jan15,0,1402940.story?coll=la-home-headlines

BAGHDAD — After more than 2 1/2 years of sputtering reconstruction work, the United States' "Marshall Plan" to rebuild this war-torn country is drawing to a close this year with much of its promise unmet and no plans to extend its funding.

The $18.6 billion approved by Congress in 2003 will be spent by the end of this year, officials here say. Foreign governments have given only a fraction of the billions they pledged two years ago.

<snip>

"We were never intending to rebuild Iraq," McCoy said. "We were providing enough funds to jump-start the reconstruction effort in this country."

<snip>

"If they say they have spent money, where is it?" asked Salah Qaragholi, 30, a barber in the poor neighborhood called Zafraniya. "Where are the projects? The electricity is only four hours a day."

Baghdad's roads are an obstacle course of barriers, potholes and debris. Many government and office buildings are either still gutted or strung with webs of electrical wire connecting to generators that run 12 hours on good days. A brown haze fouls the air and pools of sewage overflow dot the streets.

...more on *Co's failure in Iraq...

looking back to April 14,2003

excerpt:

BROWN: And is that, do we believe, all of it, or some of it American tax dollars, or relatively little of it American tax dollars?

POUND: Well, if the Bush administration gets its way, it will be relatively little. Right now, what you have is the Congress is earmarking $2.4 billion for this first year. Along with that, there is about 1.4 billion to 1.7 billion of seized Iraqi assets that the administration would like to use for this rebuilding program.

<snip>

I know this: that there is concern with this rush that people will get jobs -- or companies will get jobs who might be a problem. For example, last week, Henry Hyde, who is the chairman of the House International Relations Committee, brought in a senior State Department official to talk about the award of a contract to a company called Dynacore, which does security work. Dynacore had a problem in the past in the Balkans in connection with a sex scandal back in '99- 2000. And Henry Hyde's staff wanted assurances, and got assurances, from the State Department that the State Department would carefully monitor the work that Dynacore does Iraq.

BROWN: Is there a model out there? Is it accurate to say what we're looking at is the Marshall Plan again, or almost?

POUND: Well, I think what we're looking at is something that's going to cost an awful lot and is the biggest reconstruction effort by this country since the Marshall Plan. Obviously, it's not the same thing. You're not talking about Europe. But, you know, it is -- I can't think of anything else that compares to this in the last 50-60 years, that's for sure.

...more...

[PATRICK]

1. They started cutting Afghanistan

loose when going for the next war.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Does my memory fail me, or haven't right-wingers bitched throughout

about the media's failure to glorify all the many wonderous schools, hospitals, buildings the U.S. has provided?

While this bitching and denial have been going on, at the time, we've been still reading Iraqi people have no water, plumbing, electricity. We've read that disease has been spreading due to stagnant, poisoned water, and the very few hospital facilities are hard pressed to be able to make a dent in the wild overflow of wounded and dying people.

Quite the achievement.

Whine: "Whyyyyyy donnnnn't theeeyyyyyyy eeeeeever teeeelllllll abouuuuuuuttt aaaaalllllll the gooooooood thiiiiingggggsss weeeeeeeee'rrrreeeee doooiiiinnnnggggggg??????"

[hadrons]

4. the thing about the bitching is that when you get to the specifics ...

the list of the "good news" is so pathetic that support for the invasion would drop even farther

[acmavm]

3. Never planned to rebuild it? Then why in the hell did they blow it all

to hell? Didn't they commit all these crimes and kill all these people and destroy the cities to 'let freedom reign'? How the hell can you 'let freedom reign' in blown-to-shit rubble? And who's free? And who's reigning?

All of this is such a crock of shit. And to top it all off the criminal cabal that started this mess can't get thier greedy sticky fingers on the one thing that they bombed the hell out of these people for. The oil. And they never will.

[struggle4progress]

10. They blew it all up as an object lesson to other states, of course.

[NeoConsSuck]

11. Well, they didn't blow up everything

the oil fields were spared the collateral damage of this 'liberation'. Halliburton and Cheney are making sure our tax dollars go to the oil infrastructure, not to the Iraqi peasants.

Did we invade to improve the living standards of the Iraqi people, or Exxon investors?

[Earth_First]

5. Maybe the $9 billion USD will turn up and keep the party going...

[DiverDave]

6. Can you say "Payoff?"

Can you say THEFT?, can you say the BFEE ROBBED US BLIND??
Tons of money, literally, they lost TONS of money.
Makes the brinks and the royal mail train robbers look like pikers.
Where is the msm on THIS?
Oh yeah, I forgot, they are liberal shills.

[teryang]

8. Can you say THEFT?

That's what it was.

The idea of a marshall plan at this time in our history is absolutely ridiculous. It takes $2 Billion plus a day in foreign cash just to keep our debt funded economy going.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

7. Funny you would think so called intellectuals like Count Wolfowitz

would picked up a book or two. You know sort of emulate what seemed to have worked in the past.

[struggle4progress]

9. US ‘Had No Policy’ in Place to Rebuild Iraq (FT / Oct 05)

Published on Monday, October 31, 2005 by the Financial Times

by Stephanie Kirchgaessner

The US government had “no comprehensive policy or regulatory guidelines” in place for staffing the management of postwar Iraq, according to the top government watchdog overseeing the country’s reconstruction.

The lack of planning had plagued reconstruction since the US-led invasion, and been exacerbated by a “general lack of co-ordination” between US government agencies charged with the rebuilding of Iraq, said Stuart Bowen, the special inspector-general for Iraq reconstruction, in a report released on Sunday ...

Conflicting data also showed “possible funding anomalies”, because although the PCO reported that more than 85 per cent of oil projects were on or ahead of schedule, other data showed that the cost of completing the tasks was increasing beyond initial estimates ...

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1031-05.htm