Political Skullduggery

The United States is weaseling out of rebuilding the infrastructure of Iraq which was destroyed in a ill-conceived war of choice.

The Iraqis are just going to have to get used to remaining in primitive conditions.

The U.S. official who oversees reconstruction spending in Iraq has called for money beyond $18.4 billion originally earmarked, saying postwar funds will be exhausted by the end of 2006 with many projects likely to be unfinished.

Iraq's water supply, electrical capacity and oil production -- three primary targets of reconstruction -- are functioning below prewar standards, said Stuart W. Bowen, Jr., the inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, in a quarterly report to Congress published Monday...

U.S. money allocated to reconstruction has been depleted by steeper-than-anticipated security costs. As a result, U.S. officials have said in recent months that the Iraqi government and foreign donors will have to bear more of the burden of rebuilding the war-ravaged nation. Reconstruction administrators have said there will be no further funding requests in the Bush administration's budget, which will be presented to Congress next month.

The wanker of the day supplies an odious comment:

"It was never our intention to completely rebuild Iraq," said Brig. Gen. William McCoy, the Army Corps of Engineers commander overseeing reconstruction, in a recent interview.

Why the fuck not?

The documents published Monday were the latest in a string of disclosures by Bowen of the myriad difficulties facing U.S. reconstruction in Iraq. Previous audits have shown efforts to be hundreds of projects behind schedule, hamstrung by unanticipated security costs and marred by occasional but egregious mismanagement and corruption.

The mismanagement and corruption was one of the reasons we invaded Iraq in the first place.

Ask Dick Cheney.