Sunday, September 17, 2006

Blood Money, Part II: Greed Waste and Fraud that Have Undermined the Rebuilding of Iraq

There were 26 million people in Iraq...living fairly peaceful lives under a terrible dictator, no question, but millions of people around the world had it a lot worse than these Iraqi civilians under Hussein, yet the bush admin. did not seem too concerned about them. We have and will always do business with despicable regimes and governments, knowingly or unknowingly, it’s part of having super-power status in the world.

During WWII, FDR became “buddies” with Joseph Stalin…even called him “Uncle Joe”…in this case I believe it was a matter of choosing between the lesser of two evils.
Whatever the case may be, Stalin turned out to be just as brutal as Hitler and there will always be argument about whether FDR’s relationship with Stalin was necessary to conquer Hitler.

Today, there are so many suffering under terrible circumstances and it would be great if we could help all of them but we can’t so the question becomes, “why did we choose Iraq as the country to put all of our money and effort?”

Before the war started, Iraq was a wide open potential billion dollar marketplace that everyone wanted to get into and that was a potential goldmine for “us”. For example, there was no cell phone system in place under Sadaam Hussein or much of any kind of phone system at all...Iraq was completely exploitable and completely ready for making lots of money.

Bush said his goal in 2003 was to build the best infrastructure in the region.

Well, after more than 31/2 years:

Iraqi people have less electricity than under Sadaam.

Oil production is far below its pre war peak.

Our first priority was to get a cell phone system up and running...well, 31/2 years later Iraqis can’t even call 911.

There are too many outbreaks of easily prevented diseases like hepatitis. The $50 million spent on a high-end hospital for children that did not work out could have been spent on the fundamental things needed over there like vaccinations, clean water and the like which would have saved more lives even if that high end hospital did work out.

Hospitals, communication, schools, power facilities, water and sewage services, trash collection and every other section of infrastructure required to live a “comfortable” life have been ruined and still today are far from being the “best infrastructure in the region” as President Bush hoped.

The people that have profited from the billions that have been poured into Iraq include an assortment of retired republican operatives, US businessmen, Iraqi exiles with dubious histories and doubtful motives, and massive US corporations like Halliburton and Bechtel.

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