Naomi Klein has written an excellent article on where we stand, Shameless in Iraq. It is another article that when I finished reading it I once again understand that our undertaking in Iraq was never done to remove a ruthless dictator and to bring democracy to Iraq. The plan all along was to conquer Iraq and set it up as a hub for our never ending war on terror that will enable the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) to steal the resources of our country, and many other countries as well, and also enable the government to adopt laws that will take our freedoms promised by our founders.

When you understand the deliberate strife the people of Iraq were put through and will continue to go through it leaves no doubt that the reconstruction of Iraq was never seriously undertaken because they could not be treated so badly for so long if the country was up and running smoothly. If we would have put that country back together in a timely fashion then we would have to leave -- and I don't mean leave like the current farce of a handover, I mean really leave, troops and all -- and then what would Halliburton, Bechtel, CACI, Blackwater USA and all the rest do? Well they would have to go start a war somewhere else. Just look at this part of the article:

Iraqis saw something else: desperately needed jobs going to Americans, Europeans and South Asians; roads crowded with trucks shipping in supplies produced in foreign plants, while Iraqi factories were not even supplied with emergency generators. As a result, the reconstruction was seen not as a recovery from war but as an extension of the occupation, a foreign invasion of a different sort. And so, as the resistance grew, the reconstruction itself became a prime target.

The contractors have responded by behaving even more like an invading army, building elaborate fortresses in the Green Zone and surrounding themselves with mercenaries. And being hated is expensive. According to the latest estimates, security costs are eating up 25 percent of reconstruction contracts--money not being spent on hospitals, water-treatment plants or telephone exchanges.

Meanwhile, insurance brokers selling sudden-death policies to contractors in Iraq have doubled their premiums, with insurance costs reaching 30 percent of payroll. That means many companies are spending half their budgets arming and insuring themselves against the people they are supposedly in Iraq to help. And according to an estimate by Charles Adwan of Transparency International, quoted on NPR's Marketplace, "At least 20 percent of US spending in Iraq is lost to corruption." How much is actually left over for reconstruction? Don't do the math.

Rather than models of speed and efficiency, the contractors look more like overbilling, underperforming, lumbering beasts, barely able to move for fear of the hatred they have helped generate. The problem goes well beyond the latest reports of Halliburton drivers abandoning $85,000 trucks on the road because they don't carry spare tires. Private contractors are also accused of playing leadership roles in the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. A landmark class-action lawsuit filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights alleges that the Titan Corporation and CACI International conspired with US officials to "humiliate, torture and abuse persons" to increase demand for their "interrogation services."

I'll do the math: 25 percent for security, 30 percent going to the insurance companies (the biggest criminal outfit going) and 20 percent to good old fashion corruption. 75 percent of your reconstruction dollars are going to things other that reconstruction. How much health care or education or food or clothes could that money buy for those in need instead of this horrible corporate give-away to the MIC?

The Saddam Al Qaeda link is finally proven
Link

A hopeful article
First Ripple of a Political Tidal Wave?
But there is one last bit of evidence suggesting that Inslee and Baird are on to something. In late August 2002, at the beginning of the buildup to the Iraq war, a Pew Research Center poll found that only 37 percent of Americans felt Bush had laid out a case for military action; 52 percent felt he had not.

In other words, millions of middle-of-the-road Americans had doubts about the war before it started. Many of those doubters eventually went along with the president but now question the war and the way the administration handled it. If Inslee is right about his tidal wave, the doubters will give it its power.

Krugman sums it up
Who Lost Iraq?

Let's say the obvious. By making Iraq a playground for right-wing economic theorists, an employment agency for friends and family, and a source of lucrative contracts for corporate donors, the administration did terrorist recruiters a very big favor.

- posted by Mom/Dad @ 1:12 PM