The U.S. is ending its "rebuilding" efforts in Iraq. More money for war (approved with full bipartisan support)? No problem. So "normal" that a bill providing $50 billion for the war also provided citizenship for an ice dancer, and the press gave more prominence to the ice dancer, so uncontroversial was the money for war. Money for rebuilding Iraq? Sorry, no can do. And what
has the rebuilding money actually done? A lot less than is claimed.
On the last day of 2005, George Bush
signed an appropriations bill. Rather telling about the significance of this event in the United States, and the opposition it generated in Congress (essentially none) is that, in the article describing it, the fact that this bill helped "ice dancer Tanith Belbin gain American citizenship in time to represent the United States in the Turin Olympics" is featured in the article
above the fact that the same bill provided $50 billion more for war in Iraq and Afghanistan. $50 billion more for killing people? No problem.
Today, the Washington Post reports on the other side of the coin of American values:
The Bush administration does not intend to seek any new funds for Iraq reconstruction in the budget request going before Congress in February, officials say. The decision signals the winding down of an $18.4 billion U.S. rebuilding effort in which roughly half of the money was eaten away by the insurgency, a buildup of Iraq's criminal justice system and the investigation and trial of Saddam Hussein.
But that's alright, we're told, because "the U.S. never intended to completely rebuild Iraq," according to the Army Corps of Engineers commander overseeing the work. I'm sure they didn't. But rebuilding what they
destroyed might be a good start.
And what has been accomplished? Here's what the Post, without attribution but presumably serving in its role as stenographer for the U.S. government, claims:
The hundreds of Americans and Iraqis who have devoted themselves to the reconstruction effort point to 3,600 projects that the United States has completed or intends to finish before the $18.4 billion runs out around the end of 2006. These include work on 900 schools, construction of hospitals and nearly 160 health care centers and clinics, and repairs on or construction of nearly 800 miles of highways, city streets and village roads.
Well, I don't know about all of that. But I do know something about that "work on 900 schools." It's now the start of 2006. In
November, 2003, George Bush claimed that the U.S. had already "refurbished" more than 1,500 schools, and Dick Cheney claimed that more than 1,000 had been "rebuilt." More than two years later, we now are given a
smaller number. Not to mention that, as I
wrote back then, the U.S. government plays rather fast and loose with the words "rebuilding" and "refurbishing," counting such things as providing new desks or replacing some broken windows as "refurbishing" or even "rebuilding."
What has the U.S. actually accomplished with its "rebuilding" billions?
U.S. officials have shifted at least $2.5 billion from the rebuilding of Iraq's decrepit electrical, education, water, sewage, sanitation and oil networks to build new security forces for Iraq and to construct a nationwide system of medium- and maximum-security prisons and detention centers.