Pentagon 'crippled Iraq aid'

[cal04]

INTERFERENCE by the Pentagon delivered a massive blow to efforts to provide humanitarian relief for Iraq after last year's war, according to two US aid experts who struggled with the conflict's chaotic aftermath.

In trenchant criticism, the pair say the Department of Defence alienated aid workers, misjudged the scale of looting that wrecked Iraq's health service and sent out bureaucrats who only served to complicate matters.

The traditional American response to humanitarian emergencies and natural disasters abroad is carried out by the State Department's US Agency for International Development (USAID) and Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA).

In the months leading up to the war, these agencies trained up an 80-person team specially for Iraq, many of them with long expertise in emergencies, says the commentary, published by Frederick Burkle and Eric Noji in Saturday's Lancet.But that initiative was hamstrung by the Pentagon which, breaking with tradition, decided to set up its own humanitarian planning team, the authors said.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,11009799%255E1702,00.html

[punpirate]

1. The Pentagon has...

... consistently sought, under the Bush administration, to usurp functions traditionally handled by the State Dept., and done it with a kind of arrogance that strongly mirrors the civilian personalities in the Pentagon.

I think, in this way, the DoD attempted to blunt the effectiveness of diplomacy, just as having people such as Armitage and John Bolton in State accomplished the same thing.

[UpInArms]

2. memory lane calls

http://www.iraqwatch.org/government/US/Pentagon/dod-rumsfeldmyers-041103.htm

excerpt:

Rumsfeld: Let me say one other thing. The images you are seeing on television you are seeing over, and over, and over, and it's the same picture of some person walking out of some building with a vase, and you see it 20 times, and you think, "My goodness, were there that many vases?" (Laughter.) "Is it possible that there were that many vases in the whole country?"

[peacetalksforall]

3. Anyone who hasn't read the New Yorker article about the State Dept

and the un-American and non-traditional government structure that the Pentagon is trying to set-up - should pull it up on the internet right now. Combined with other articles and DU threads - it appears Israel took over the Pentagon and the Pentagon is taking over (trying to takeover) our U.S.government and any governments who are a risk to Israel.

Cheney and Rumsfeld share the pResidency.

[bloom]

8. link, title, date?

need more info please.

[MisterP]

9. kick

[mediaman007]

4. Wow! Drip, Drip has become Trickle, Trickle

Once the Kerry bandwagon get the momentum, there won't be enough room for all of the people that the Bush*ies have offended.

[JoFerret]

5. "Here's the story on Yahoo "Pentagon meddling crippled...

Pentagon meddling crippled humanitarian aid to post-war Iraq

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1521&e=3&u=/afp/iraq_health_us

[shraby]

6. The drip..drip..became a trickle and now

it's becoming a flooded river overflowing it's banks. May it gather up all the perps and put them where they belong.

[Tangledog]

7. 132 votes @ 4.63 (nt)

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

10. "...last year's war..."

You have to be fucking kidding me!