As Bechtel leaves Iraq, so goes the reconstruction effort. What the Republicans are NOT telling you is that they've already "cut and run," and they ran away with the bulk of the American taxpayer's money.

So, what did the U.S. taxpayers spend billions of dollars for in Iraq? And what did nearly three thousand American troops die for?

Those are questions that were never seriously debated in the war on Iraq because it's a chickenhawk politician's war fought by poor boys who serve as cannon fodder for geopolitical imperialist interests of the rich and the powerful. And even though we all know that it was the OIL, stupid, they couldn't even get that right because the resistance will set that oil on fire before they allow it to be taken by the occupying forces.

So, now that they've reaped their reward from Bush and Cheney Oil Co., paid for with the blood of Americans and Iraqis, Bechtel decides it's time to cut and run with the money.

November 3, 2006 NYT
Op-Ed Columnist
As Bechtel Goes

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Bechtel, the giant engineering company, is leaving Iraq. Its mission - to rebuild power, water and sewage plants - wasn't accomplished: Baghdad received less than six hours a day of electricity last month, and much of Iraq's population lives with untreated sewage and without clean water. But Bechtel, having received $2.3 billion of taxpayers' money and having lost the lives of 52 employees, has come to the end of its last government contract.

As Bechtel goes, so goes the whole reconstruction effort. Whatever our leaders may say about their determination to stay the course complete the mission, when it comes to rebuilding Iraq they've already cut and run. The $21 billion allocated for reconstruction over the last three years has been spent, much of it on security rather than its intended purpose, and there's no more money in the pipeline.

The failure of reconstruction in Iraq raises three questions. First, how much did that failure contribute to the overall failure of the war? Second, how was it that America, the great can-do nation, in this case couldn't and didn't? Finally, if we've given up on rebuilding Iraq, what are our troops dying for?

There's no definitive way to answer the first question. You can make a good case that the invasion of Iraq was doomed no matter what, because we never had enough military manpower to provide security. But the lack of electricity and clean water did a lot to dissipate any initial good will the Iraqis may have felt toward the occupation. And Iraqis are well aware that the billions squandered by American contractors included a lot of Iraqi oil revenue as well as U.S. taxpayers' dollars.

Consider the symbolism of Iraq's new police academy, which Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, has called "the most essential civil security project in the country." It was built at a cost of $75 million by Parsons Corporation, which received a total of about $1billion for Iraq reconstruction projects. But the academy was so badly built that feces and urine leak from the ceilings in the student barracks.

Think about it. We want the Iraqis to stand up so we can stand down. But if
they do stand up, we'll dump excrement on their heads.

As for how this could have happened, that's easy: major contractors believed, correctly, that their political connections insulated them from accountability. Halliburton and other companies with huge Iraq contracts were basically in the same position as Donald Rumsfeld: they were so closely identified with President Bush and, especially, Vice President Cheney that firing or even disciplining them would have been seen as an admission of personal failure on the part of top elected officials.

As a result, the administration and its allies in Congress fought accountability all the way. Administration officials have made repeated backdoor efforts to close the office of Mr. Bowen, whose job is to oversee the use of reconstruction money. Just this past May, with the failed reconstruction already winding down, the White House arranged
for the last $1.5 billion of reconstruction money to be placed outside Mr. Bowen's jurisdiction. And now, finally, Congress has passed a bill whose provisions include the complete elimination of his agency next October.

The bottom line is that those charged with rebuilding Iraq had no incentive to do the job right, so they didn't.

You can see, by the way, why a Democratic takeover of the House, if it happens next week, would be such a pivotal event: suddenly, committee chairmen with subpoena power would be in a position to investigate where all the Iraq money went.

But that's all in the past. What about the future?

Back in June, after a photo-op trip to Iraq, Mr. Bush said something I agree with. "You can measure progress in megawatts of electricity delivered," he declared. "You can measure progress in terms of oil sold on the market on behalf of the Iraqi people." But what those measures actually show is the absence of progress. By any material measure, Iraqis are worse off than they were under Saddam.

And we're not planning to do anything about it: the U.S.-led reconstruction effort in Iraq is basically over. I don't know whether the administration is afraid to ask U.S. voters for more money, or simply considers the situation hopeless. Either way, the United States has accepted defeat on reconstruction.

Yet Americans are still fighting and dying in Iraq. For what?

all of the news on Iraq these days shows that the Bush policy is not working 0-------

check out this
NBC News and news services
Updated: 12:26 a.m. ET Dec. 7, 2006
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WASHINGTON - President Bush’s policy in Iraq “is not working,” a high-level commission said Wednesday in a blunt, bleak assessment that called for an urgent diplomatic attempt to stabilize the country and allow withdrawal of most U.S. combat troops by early 2008.
After nearly four years of war and the deaths of more than 2,900 U.S. troops, the situation is “grave and deteriorating,” the bipartisan panel said. It also warned, “The ability of the United States to influence events within Iraq is diminishing.”
Among some of the changes the commission called for:

The invasion of Iraq was not just to change the government in Iraq, the double edged policy which has rarely been openly discussed in public is this: Iraq gives us a strong strategic advantage should Iran become even more of a rogue nation than it has been for the past thirty years. Success in Iraq would be sweet but the seemingly prolonged indecision of the Bush administration as to how to win in Iraq is in reality a way to keep buying time as Iran's regime continues to push its way toward a conflict with the west. Iran,... the real target.

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Turk Quid Pro Quo

The war was meant to take out a hostile regime to end a situation that people should have been saying was intolerable throughout the 1990s. The "chickenhawks" were the asses who thought a decade of "no fly zones" was a good idea - the ones who also left Hussein in power at the end of the first Gulf War.

And people can vent spleen and be arm chair chairmen of the joint chiefs of staff and yada yada yada - play US pseudo-politics or global pseudo-politics - waa-waa ---- but what have we got in Iraq?

We don't have a regime hostile to the US, with oil wealth, with the capability to stock pile and hand out WMDs or shell out supplies and money to suicide bombersin Israel. We also don't have a regime in power of a whole state with oil wealth that is bent on expanding power in a region ABSOLUTELY VITAL to the economic well-being of every nation on the face of the earth.

We won't be seeing Iraq invade Iran or Kuwait or go for the Saudi oil fields or whatever - two of which Iraq tried to accomplish under Hussein.

What else have we got?

We have had around 3,000 US soldier KIA - at least the number was pushing 3,000 the last time I bothered to turn on the defeatest news here in the US.

3,000 ---- dear reader - is that a whopping number to you?

It would be a discussion worth having.

I frequently wonder these days how the US survived WWII. I guess it comes down to generations and which fought which.

You would think by the news coverage here in the US, the death toll in Iraq had GREATLY surpassed that of Vietnam and the Korean War - probably both combined.

3,000....

Any loss of life is precious unless the person is evil, but 3,000 is not a terribly high number when talking about modern warfare.

And that is what bugs me a good bit. Before the war, the media (in the US as well) was defeatest. Actually, they were trying to prevent the war in the first place. All we heard about was how it was going to be a long war. WMDs would probably be used. At minimum it would be hard desert fighting the Iraqis were used to and we were not. And at minimum it would be street to street fighting that would neutralize our technology and fire power, because unlike in WWII and the Korean War, we would not be able to flatten Iraqi cities due to the pressure of world opinon.

Then, when the war started, we switched from dire predictions in the opening days to clear cut defeatest talk when the sand storm hit. We were "bogged down" - this was "not the fight we war gamed for" - the minister of propaganda in Baghadad was the delight of the world media....

right up to that point the US did a thunder run into the heart of capital, while the guy was giving a press conference no less, and then the city feel and real war fighting quickly died out.

The media gave one day of kudos - allowing the world to believe something positive that first day in the capital - but it quickly got its bearings back and picked a winner (which meant a loser for the US) --- what was it? Thousands of GIs killed in a day? A week? Losing key battles? No.... it was f---ing looting!!!

That was the most glaring, clear sign that there was no way in hell the US could do anything right in Iraq --- that the media was not going to allow any messages that somethings were done that were worth doing - if they had anything to say about it - and they are the only ones who get a f---ing say.

Why does the precious media that is all-knowing about the corruption and how the war is lost and the "cannon fodder" boys (and girls) go and actually let the soldiers speak for themsevles? Why --- that message might be too positive....

3,000 dead....

3,000 dead when the media had us believing 30,000 was more than a realistic figure for just the first 6 months to a year of "hard fighting" in Iraq.

3,000 - and the media has never skipped a beat on using their own ammunition to win the war - the way they believe it should be won - the US leaving with "bushie" in disgrace....

It's sickening. If Americans want to hate Bush. Hate him. That's fine. But have decency enough to be honest.

And the hype we get on the war from the media, and the people who regurgitate it, is not honest.

Ultimately, success rebuilding Iraq will fall on the Iraq people. It was the same with the Marshal Plan in Europe after WWII, the effort in Japan, and the effort in Korea, to name some examples.

Korea is a good case in point both before and after the Korean War. It took a Park Chung Hee to inspire enough of the Korean people to work together rather than against each other. South Korea both before and after the war was also a place where outside money, operatives, and influences worked hard to see that allied sucess never materialized. And it was the South Korean people who eventually decided to sucessful work against those forces.

The US will never "rebuilt" or even "stabilize" Iraq until a tipping point is reached among the Iraqi masses. The US might be able to push the society toward that tipping point, but the Iraqis will be the ones who have the decision to make to work together amongst themselves and with the US or not.

I don't mind the idea of leaving Iraq completely now that the Hussein regime is no more and the nation's ability to threaten neighbors like the Saudies and Kuwaitis is over for at least a significant period of time.

But, I believe it is most definately worth it to American (and global) interests to help Iraq hopefully come close to achieving the type of sucess in becoming a democratic, economic healthy nation like Germany, Japan, and South Korea eventually became.

And I believe anyone who says the price being paid so far is "outrageous" and so clearly lop-sided and "far too high already" are simply liars.

If they want to call the war illegal - a crime against humanity - and whatever - then make those arguments.

But I'm so tired of this absolutely constant bombardment about how everything in Iraq is such a worse case scenerio, I wish they'd write down on a sheet of paper, then crinkle it up, and shove it up their ............

Look at it this way: If we pull out of Iraq and leave a mess, Iran will effectively take over, if not directly, by proxy. This will make the Saudi's and the rest of the Arab world run to build up arms more so than they have. The arms race will become a nuclear arms race. This is not to say there might not be a nuclear arms race beginning in the mid east anyway but, if we pull out of Iraq, it will be like stepping on the accelerator. Iraq is the most important buffer zone of the middle east. We all want a good out come in Iraq, a sovereign, democratic outcome but faced with the reality of a powerful and nuclear Iran, an Iraq in chaos serves as a buffer zone just as a peaceful Iraq does.

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Turk Quid Pro Quo

A good discussion by all. I think we accomplished one goal, getting Saddam out of power. I don't believe he will be executed by his own people. I hope a regieme emerges which will bring a better government. They might even be grateful to the US after this civil war is over. We will possibly never recover from our economic losses in this war, unless someone pays us back in oil. I wouldn't bet on it. We allowed our own contractors to botch a lot of things, it appears. No doubt there was some brother-in-law deals and nepotism involved. There always is. It will be a while before we discover whether or not the war was worth it to the US. The loss of lives, however small, will be factored in, and years will pass before we know the true loss. We did our best to save a country from a Despot. Was our best good enough?

"It will be a while before we discover whether or not the war was worth it to the US. "

And that is so true.

I just get pissed off at how the whole discussion is run in American society. From the very highest points - the media, educated-type talk shows, higher education - the works - it is a bunch of dishonest BS.

But they get away with it......

It is so clearly about setting up insurmountable obstacles then harping on there not having been over come.

Like I said, before the war, it was all, "This will be an impossible war to win. It will cost tens of thousands of American lives. Is it worth it?" which is how the bullshit media likes to make a statement --- when they mean to say, "This is not worth it. Viewing public, do something to stop it!!"

Then, when the dire predictions turned out to be completely wrong - they make a point of ignoring how much easier the main fighting turned out to be from what they said would happen - and started preaching that - in fact - the losses suffered were on the worst case scenerio scale and we should think about getting out.

Suddenly, 30,000 dead was not the benchmark for failure, but 3,000 -- well, actually 300, because the media and others began this switch in theme as soon as the heavy fighting was over.

Maybe Iraq today is an unwinable postion. Maybe it will prove unwinable.

I just know I can't trust squat I hear about it from just about everybody....

It is completely agenda driven talk - and the agendas have jackshit to do with Iraq the nation itself.....

That is what irritates me.....

I don't care if George Bush has maggots eat him out from the inside and goes down as the worst president in the history of the human race....

....I don't care if he is canonized and has his faced etched at Mt. Rushmore.

What is going on in Iraq is too important to play a bunch of pseduo-politics like a bunch of middle school students....

And that is exactly the level of discussion, it appears to me, we get across the board in public........there is nobody you can turn to for a real discussion or presentation of facts....

I believe the coming year, 2007, will be the most decisive year for providing future direction in the middle east, central Asia. Iran continues to be the major source of things that are destructive in the region with the blessing of their providers, Russia and China. Russia and China both want to see the USA fail in its role of the last fifty years, that is; the go to country for all direction and sanity. The stage has been set, in Iraq, Afghanistan and other regional places where we have a presence, the naval buildup in the Persian Gulf continues. The Persian Gulf is the choke point for most of the worlds oil and it will either be defended by the western powers, mostly the USA of course or it will be shut down by Iran. Link to a new story on naval buildup to face Iran's hostility if needed:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16281057/

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Turk Quid Pro Quo