WP: Bush Considers Economic Package for Iraq

[DeepModem Mom]

Bush Considers Economic Package for Iraq
Officials Describe the Initiatives as Part of a Series of Steps Designed to Counter Insurgency
By Michael Abramowitz and Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, December 29, 2006; Page A03


President Bush, second from right, walks towards waiting reporters with members of his national security team, from left, Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Peter Pace Thursday, Dec. 28, 2006 in Crawford, Texas. Bush met with his national security team at his Texas ranch, and declared he has moved one step closer to devising a new Iraq strategy but will seek more advice before settling on a final plan. "We're making good progress," Bush said (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

....Some U.S. officials think an economic package may be the most promising element of a revised strategy, since it would deal with the Iraqis' deteriorating conditions and growing disillusionment with the U.S. intervention. Others, however, have severe questions about whether such a package would work almost four years after the American invasion and after previous botched efforts to stimulate economic activity.

The economic package now on the table focuses on three elements, and is separate from the long-term jobs-creation program being promoted by the U.S. military. One senior official cautioned that all three elements have been discussed in some manner but that the final package has not been determined.

One element, traditionally linked to a counterinsurgency strategy, is to follow up any military sweep with a short-term work program that would immediately hire people in the neighborhood to clear up trash or do other small civil-affairs jobs.

This project would begin within hours rather than days of a military operation and would help signal a return to normalcy. It might also help wean young unemployed Iraqi men from the militias or prevent them from joining any of the armed factions that are fueling Iraq's escalating sectarian strife.

The second part would be a micro-loan program -- involving modest loans to help individuals get businesses going -- to generate new economic activity in poor neighborhoods. Unemployment is worse today than during the rule of Saddam Hussein, Iraq's ousted leader.

The third part of the package, which has been developed in part by the Treasury Department, would review dormant state-owned industries to try and determine which ones are economically viable and worth reopening. The package would be a shift from the large-scale and long-term development projects that, in the past, relied heavily on Western contractors and expertise....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/28/AR2006122800094.html

[Eurobabe]

1. Typical * small brain, throw LOTS of money

at the natives and they will cease to be restless.

Hey Bush, how's bout considering an economic package for your OWN COUNTRY, you half wit?!!!

[Erika]

2. So how much is W going to tell us to shove it

when we ask for our taxpayer $ returned for our own infrastructure needs telling us we are only socialist pigs looking for a federal teat?

[sutz12]

3. "President Bush, second from right"

I find it rather hilarious that they thought they needed to identify him like that. :rofl:

[Lasher]

4. Looks like a good way to borrow more money to give to cronies

It's not like we're staying the course or anything. We're going to finish the job, that's the ticket.

[ixion]

5. thus far, the 'details' of this plan show a distinct lack of perspective

on the situation, IMO.

So, let me get this straight: We're going to go into a neighborhood or city, rip it to shreds with artillery, etc, and then -- like a football game -- someone will blow a whistle and start handing out cash to the locals who will gleefully emerge from their fox holes and start sweeping up the 'mess', which will no doubt include some human remains.

To continue, we would then loan them money so they can start a business, a business that would be shot full of holes when the next 'sweep' came around.

Gee, I know it's not fashionable to inject reality into the dialog these days, but since human lives and billions of dollars and our international standing hangs in the balance, shouldn't we have a plan that will, you know, work?

[fasttense]

6. Perhaps if they allowed tariffs, Unions and border control again, it might help

Iraqis crawl out from under the neocon constitution they forced on the country. They have privatized just about everything that was run by the government and some of those functions were never taken over by corporations because there was very little money in them. Now that even corporations wont touch those functions, they are going to make them government run again. Seems they are just going around in circles. They turned Iraq's economy into a neocon's wet dream and found it doesn't work. Surprise, surprise, surprise.

[annabanana]

7. I see that OIL isn't anywhere in that package. .

Oh, wait, I see it under the table. . .