Time running out for rebuilding of Iraq

[ClintonTyree]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060408/ap_on_re_mi_ea/rebuilding_iraq_1;_ylt=AtQRVLENDoL88xTSBIR6XbJX6GMA;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

<snip>

The ambitions of 2003, when President Bush spoke of making Iraq's infrastructure "the best in the region," have given way to the shortfalls of 2006, in electricity and water supply, sanitation, health facilities and oil production. A University of Maryland poll in January found strong majorities of Iraqis hopeful about their country's future in general, but only one in five thought the Americans had done a good job on reconstruction.

Even after billions were spent on power plants and substations, electricity generation still hasn't regained the level it had before the U.S. invasion of 2003. When Fallon's experts keep the lights burning late, they're relying on emergency U.S. generators in their "Green Zone" enclave, since the rest of Baghdad gets power only a few hours a day.

Barely one-third of the water-treatment projects the Americans planned will be completed. Only 32 percent of the Iraqi population has access to clean drinking water now, compared with 50 percent before the war, according to the U.S. special inspector-general for Iraq reconstruction.

About 19 percent of Iraqis today have working sewer connections, compared with 24 percent before 2003.

Of more than 150 planned health clinics, only 15 have been completed, under a contract ending this month.

Oil production, meanwhile, has stagnated, averaging 2.05 million barrels a day in mid-March, short of the 2.5 million-a-day U.S. goal, and far short of Iraq's production peak of 3.7 million in the 1970s. Fewer than one-quarter of the rehabilitation projects for the oil industry have been completed.


So tell us again about all of the wonderful "success stories" in Iraq, Georgie! :eyes:

[Deja Q]

1. And if it's not rebuilt when the time runs out... what then?

[ClintonTyree]

3. We just keep pouring more and more money into....

Halliburton's coffers I guess. :shrug: Only $20 billion of the money earmarked for Iraq (approaching 1/2 Trillion dollars now) has actually been spent rebuilding all the shit we blew up. The rest, as I said, goes into Halliburton's and KBR's coffers. There's no accounting of the money being spent in Iraq, everyone is just stuffing money into suitcases and making off with it.

[Spinzonner]

2. To err is human

To really screw things up takes a Neocon

[NYC]

4. Where did those billions go? Into whose pockets?

...Even after billions were spent on power plants and substations...

Billions may have been spent, but in what way? How much of it enriched Halliburton? How much of it was just plain profit to Halliburton? How much to Custer Battles? Blackwater?

How much money did they actually put into rebuilding the infrastructure? I suspect it was very little. That's why there is very little to show for it.

[pinto]

5. $20 billion dollars later...n/t

[leftchick]

6. I thought they already quit all of the projects

and future wars will not include rebuilding projects. Sorry Iran.