Postwar Iraq Chaos Blamed on Poor Planning

[leftchick]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060228/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_iraq_reconstruction_3

WASHINGTON - Poor prewar planning left the United States without enough skilled workers to efficiently rebuild Iraq's economy and public works, according to a report issued Monday.

The study by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction provided a new explanation for the lagging reconstruction effort. Surveys by the Bush administration and congressional auditors have blamed insurgent attacks and the high cost of security.

Thanks to inadequate planning, the report said, early occupation officials lacked enough reconstruction staffers who knew what they were doing.

It recommended the government establish a "civilian reserve corps" to deploy around the world for postwar rebuilding.

While reconstruction has cost American taxpayers about $30 billion three years after the overthrown of Saddam Hussein, the country still lacks reliable electricity, water and other services. Monday's report — covering the time the country was under control of the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority — said early efforts were greatly affected by personnel problems.

[Strelnikov_]

1. Hell, They Could Have Reached That Conclusion By Just Hanging Out Here

for a few days.

And it would not have cost them a thing.

[Earth_First]

2. Here comes all the "we were wrong" pandering before the elections...

Expect to need golf shoes to get yourself out of the muck...

[pinto]

3. The coalition Provisional Authority's personnel were "true believers', no

other experience required. The agenda wasn't rebuilding Iraq, it was remaking Iraq for their political/financial interests. Obviously didn't work out that way.

[Che_Nuevara]

4. This is 'breaking news'? (n/t)

[MadMaddie]

5. Just another failure to add on tho the * cabal list......

Looks like they made a freudien slip.... to deploy around the world for post war rebuilding......(They are planning more wars)

<snip>
It recommended the government establish a "civilian reserve corps" to deploy around the world for postwar rebuilding.
<snip>

Heres another idea how about a "civilian reserve corps" for American disasters.....

[starmaker]

6. Bagdad Year Zero

www.harpers.org/BaghdadYearZero.html

^^^^^

Looking at the honey billboard, I was also reminded of the most common explanation for what has gone wrong in Iraq, a complaint echoed by everyone from John Kerry to Pat Buchanan: Iraq is mired in blood and deprivation because George W. Bush didn’t have “a postwar plan.” The only problem with this theory is that it isn’t true. The Bush Administration did have a plan for what it would do after the war; put simply, it was to lay out as much honey as possible, then sit back and wait for the flies.

[William Seger]

11. Wow, incredible article

... really fits together a lot of puzzle pieces, doesn't it?

[starmaker]

13. Made this new story a joke

Glad you read it.
hope others will take time to learn a little

Peace

[HysteryDiagnosis]

7. 4 moronic years is what I expected.... so far, so good. :) n/t

[teryang]

8. This is ridiculous

Loss of the war in Iraq is due to belligerent and venal ideologues commiting the Nuremburg war crime of invading a sovereign nation without legal justification.

Are such actions without negative consequences? Or is fraud and aggression activity that is rewarded on the world scene? Was Machiavelli wrong, neocons? Was Strauss wrong? Is the Roman empire really a worthy model for a modern democratic nation?

One might as well propose that the Vietnam war was lost due to "poor planning." This in fact is the neo-cons' revisionist view of history. They are "what if" ideologues with dreams of riches, position, and personal glory at someone else's expense. This is why they don't do body counts and torture is okay by them. Party members won't get tortured. This is the fascist persona.

By ceaselessly undermining traditional institutions of constitutional government as the state of war licenses them to do, political opposition has no sure ground upon which to stand. Backtalk from Congress? Isn't that anthrax in the Senate Offices? Extend the Patriot Act? Right away sir, let me be the first to drop the Bill of Rights into the trash. Watch what you say you are underming the "war on terror." Loyal party members have nothing to fear from surveillance.

Machiavelli is the loyal party members god. They create a limitless march of external enemies to legitimize the prince without legal claim to the throne. All opponents are traitors, the so called fifth column. They have set up the office of war time dictator which Machiavelli so admired and set about to crush the opposition.

To declare unjustified war abroad is to declare civil death at home. Gitmo and Abu Graid are the model for a domestic gulag. Osama bin Laden works for Rheinhard Heydrich, producing ersatz foreign crises on demand to satisfy the dictators imperial designs. Civil death is the totalitarians trademark.

If people are dissappeared and you can't access vital statistics records, they are indeed dissappeared.

[Wordie]

9. The "poor planning" was when they planned to go to war in the first place.

And that part about the "civilian reserve corps" to deploy around the world for postwar rebuilding, has me really worried. Does that mean they're planning conflicts "around the world" now?

[Auntie Bush]

12. How can about 50% of our population still believe these dimwits

can protect us better than democrats? How insulting is that? :shrug:

[Wordie]

15. Bush's approval rating is now in the 30s, according to a recent poll.

And I read someplace else that there's another poll that says Americans now think Dems are better on security. By a very small margin, but still, that's significant. (I believe the poll was conducted before the ports flap.) So maybe people are finally waking up.

btw, great screenname.

[frylock]

10. straight from the no shoot, sherlock department of the news desk..

who'd of thunk it? :eyes:

[corporatemedia]

14. Bullshit! It was Clinton's fault. nt

[libodem]

16. It's pretty obvious all we wanted was the oil

any money we've spent goes to the oil production, building bases and keeping up the green zone. The national guard troops have been sent to rebuild some buildings but it just a PR ploy so they can go back home and propagandize their friends, families, and communities about winning "hearts and minds". Plus I can't get over the missing 9 billion dollars that no one gives a crap about. What's up with that? All those Republicans scream about their damn tax dollars being so sacred, that they resent any poor women and children in America getting public assistance, yet no outcry about 9 billion missing dollars. Are they that blind or that ignorant?

[Toots]

17. Ya right and exclude Halliburton...ain't gunna happen

This is the "War Profiteer Party" and they are suggesting they use a planned approach. LOL..

[genie_weenie]

18. This admin reminds me more everyday of a Monty Python Sketch

W: Good. Well I have this large quantity of string, a hundred and twenty-two thousand *miles* of it to be exact, which I inherited, and I thought if I advertised it--

Rove: Of course! A national campaign. Useful stuff, string, no trouble there.

W: Ah, but there's a snag, you see. Due to bad planning, the hundred and twenty-two thousand miles is in three inch lengths. So it's not very useful.

Rove: Well, that's our selling point! "BUSH'S INDIVIDUAL STRINGETTES!"

W: What?

Rove: "THE NOW STRING! READY CUT, EASY TO HANDLE, BUSH'S INDIVIDUAL EMPEROR STRINGETTES - JUST THE RIGHT LENGTH!"


USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA!