http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/02/AR2006010201942_pf.html
U.S. Cedes Duties in Rebuilding Afghanistan
NATO, Other Allies Take On New Roles


By Griff Witte
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, January 3, 2006; A01




KABUL, Afghanistan -- Four years into a mammoth reconstruction effort here that has been largely led, funded and secured by Americans, the United States is showing a growing willingness to cede those jobs to others.

The most dramatic example will come by this summer, when the U.S. military officially hands over control of the volatile southern region -- plagued by persistent attacks from Islamic militias -- to an international force led by the NATO alliance. The United States will cut its troop strength by 2,500, even though it is not clear how aggressively NATO troops will pursue insurgents, who have shown no sign of relenting.

At the same time, the U.S. government is increasingly allowing Western allies, or Afghans themselves, to take on the tasks of rebuilding a country that has suffered more than two decades of fighting and remains beset by poverty, drugs and insurgency.

The United States says that its shifting approach complements Afghanistan's evolution into a self-sustaining democracy and that Washington has no plans to pull out altogether.

"The Afghans have to have enough space to make their own decisions, even to stumble sometimes," said U.S. Ambassador Ronald Neumann. "But we shouldn't leave them without critical support before they're strong enough."

As the U.S. presence becomes less visible, however, Afghans are starting to question whether the U.S. support is sufficient. Some Afghan officials express concern that the Bush administration's priorities are simply shifting elsewhere and that the United States may abandon their country prematurely, much the way it did in the early 1990s following the withdrawal of Soviet troops.

Funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development, which topped $1 billion for 2005 and has helped build highways, schools and clinics across the country during the last four years, will be reduced to just over $600 million in 2006, unless Congress appropriates more money.

On one of the biggest threats facing the country, the illicit drug trade, the United States has largely ceded leadership to the British government and is pinning its hopes on Afghan provincial governors to eradicate poppy fields. Although U.S. officials have warned repeatedly about the need to curb the burgeoning opium business, they have so far spent only modest amounts to help and now say Kabul must take the initiative.

Politically, too, the United States has been less willing to exert its influence. The previous ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, played a strong, high-profile role here, negotiating directly with recalcitrant regional leaders and openly advising President Hamid Karzai. Neumann, who arrived several months ago, is a quieter presence who rarely interferes in Karzai's decisions.

Earlier last month, to the surprise of many Afghans, the U.S. Embassy stood by silently during a struggle for the leadership of the new parliament, in which Karzai's government was believed to have backed a radical Islamic scholar and ex-militia leader accused of past human rights abuses over a more moderate candidate who had run against Karzai for president.

Some foreign allies are encouraged by the signs that the United States is willing to loosen its grip and allow others a greater role in the country's rebirth. Several Afghan officials said they welcomed the increased responsibility.

"We don't want to be a permanent burden on the international community," said Defense Minister Rahim Wardak. "This country has been defended by us for 5,000 years. That is our duty." Still, Wardak noted, the abrupt withdrawal of U.S. support after the decade-long Soviet occupation ended in 1989 precipitated a civil war that culminated with the Taliban movement taking power.

"I hope the international community, and especially the U.S., has learned the lesson of what happened," he said. "I hope that history will not repeat itself this time."

The transfer of power in southern Afghanistan will provide the first critical test of the new U.S. strategy. The shift will allow the Bush administration, which has spent more than $47 billion on military efforts in Afghanistan since 2001, to cut the U.S. troop presence by 13 percent, from 19,000 to 16,500.

The move will leave U.S. forces in charge only in the eastern provinces, and only until NATO is ready to assume command there as well. That could happen later in the year, allowing the United States to reduce its troop commitment further.

The reduction, the first since the U.S.-led invasion, comes after a year in which nearly 100 American soldiers were killed in Afghanistan, more than double the deaths during 2004. Military commanders said the higher toll was a result of their more aggressive strategy for battling the insurgency. They also asserted there would be a seamless transition when NATO troops take over, with help from the Afghan army.

"It's understood that NATO will be in a position to carry on the same counterinsurgency fight that we're running today," said Col. Don C. McGraw, who directs U.S. military operations here.

But the Afghan army remains in its infancy, and mounting a counterinsurgency has not been NATO's job. Questions remain about whether it will be willing to take on that task once its troops are deployed in the south, where on Monday, a suicide bomber in the city of Kandahar attacked a convoy of foreign troops, injuring a U.S. soldier and two Afghan civilians.

Until now, NATO has commanded the north and the west, which have been less violent than the south and the east. In Kabul, its troops have been a familiar and friendly sight on street patrols. In the countryside, they have spent much of their time coordinating reconstruction efforts -- and none chasing Taliban insurgents.

NATO's rules of engagement will be loosened when it takes over the south, allowing its forces to be more aggressive, but it is unclear exactly how much more. One member country, the Netherlands, is wavering over whether it wants to send troops to the area, a longtime Taliban stronghold that has recently been the site of numerous battles and suicide bombings. Maj. Andrew Elmes, a British spokesman for the NATO force -- officially called the International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF -- said he expects its soldiers will primarily serve in a peacekeeping function, unlike U.S. troops, who have been initiating battles with insurgents.

"If you think of a policeman, who is armed but he doesn't go out looking for a fight, that's along the lines we're looking at," he said of the expanded ISAF mission, which will add 6,000 soldiers to the 9,000 currently in the country.

Some knowledgeable Afghans predicted that such a limited NATO role would not succeed in the more dangerous territory. "The threat in the south is terrorism, drug trafficking and organized crime," said Ali Ahmad Jalali, who recently resigned as Karzai's interior minister. He spoke by telephone from Washington, where he now teaches at the National Defense University. "If they don't get involved in fighting those things, what will they be providing for the security of the country?"

Another major question is how the transition will affect U.S. efforts to track down top fugitives such as al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, his deputy Ayman Zawahiri and Taliban leader Mohammad Omar, all of whom are believed to be hiding in the region.

NATO has said it will not spend its time hunting individuals. The U.S. military will keep only a small residual presence in the south, but officials maintain that they will bring in Special Operations troops as the need arises.

"If Mullah Omar shows up in Kandahar," McGraw said, "we'll go to Kandahar."

Still, the U.S. willingness to cede authority in the south suggests just how remote the possibility of catching notorious fugitives within Afghanistan may be. Many security officials here say they believe bin Laden and others are across the border in Pakistan, where the United States has a much smaller presence.

That likelihood is another reason many Afghans wonder how much longer the United States will stay, and whether it is as committed to reconstruction as it is to catching terrorists. The possible dramatic cuts in USAID funds for Afghanistan -- the result of tightened budgets because of heavy U.S. spending in Iraq and domestic hurricane relief -- have increased that concern.

Neumann said the $623 million in aid planned for 2006 will not be enough, and he is hoping Congress will allocate more through a supplemental spending bill, as it has in past years. But he acknowledged that getting lawmakers to understand the importance of the U.S. commitment here "takes more explanation" than it once did.

Despite considerable reconstruction in the past four years, he said, much more needs to be done. Building more roads, he said, would strengthen the government, improve security and cut opium production by giving farmers access to markets for other products.

"This is too critical to just say we want victory but we want it on the cheap," Neumann said. "We're still in a war, and we need to win." © 2006 The Washington Post Company

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...006010200370_pf.html

Correction to This Article
Earlier versions of this story gave an incorrect figure for Iraqi oil production. Oil production stands at roughly 2 million barrels a day, compared with 2.6 million before U.S. troops entered Iraq in March 2003, according to U.S. government statistics. This story has been updated to reflect that corrected information.
U.S. Has End in Sight on Iraq Rebuilding
Documents Show Much of the Funding Diverted to Security, Justice System and Hussein Inquiry


By Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, January 2, 2006; A01




BAGHDAD -- 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.

Just under 20 percent of the reconstruction package remains unallocated. When the last of the $18.4 billion is spent, U.S. officials in Baghdad have made clear, other foreign donors and the fledgling Iraqi government will have to take up what authorities say is tens of billions of dollars of work yet to be done merely to bring reliable electricity, water and other services to Iraq's 26 million people.

"The U.S. never intended to completely rebuild Iraq," Brig. Gen. William McCoy, the Army Corps of Engineers commander overseeing the work, told reporters at a recent news conference. In an interview this past week, McCoy said: "This was just supposed to be a jump-start."

Since the reconstruction effort began in 2003, midcourse changes by 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 that meet international standards, according to reconstruction officials and documents. Many of the changes were forced by an insurgency more fierce than the United States had expected when its troops entered Iraq.

In addition, from 14 percent to 22 percent of the cost of every nonmilitary reconstruction project goes toward security against insurgent attacks, according to reconstruction officials in Baghdad. In Washington, the office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction puts the security costs of each project at 25 percent.

U.S. officials more than doubled the size of the Iraqi army, which they initially planned to build to only 40,000 troops. An item-by-item inspection of reallocated funds reveals how priorities were shifted rapidly to fund initiatives addressing the needs of a new Iraq: a 300-man Iraqi hostage-rescue force that authorities say stages operations almost every night in Baghdad; more than 600 Iraqis trained to dispose of bombs and protect against suicide bombs; four battalions of Iraqi special forces to protect the oil and electric networks; safe houses and armored cars for judges; $7.8 million worth of bulletproof vests for firefighters; and a center in the city of Kirkuk for treating victims of torture.

At the same time, 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.

But the insurgency has set back efforts across the board. In two of the most crucial areas, electricity and oil production, relentless sabotage has kept output at or below prewar levels despite the expenditure of hundreds of millions of American dollars and countless man-hours. Oil production stands at roughly 2 million barrels a day, compared with 2.6 million before U.S. troops entered Iraq in March 2003, according to U.S. government statistics.

The national electrical grid has an average daily output of 4,000 megawatts, about 400 megawatts less than its prewar level.

Iraqis nationwide receive on average less than 12 hours of power a day. For residents of Baghdad, it was six hours a day last month, according to a U.S. count, though many residents say that figure is high.

The Americans, said Zaid Saleem, 26, who works at a market in Baghdad, "are the best in destroying things but they are the worst in rebuilding."The Price of Security


In a speech on Aug. 8, 2003, President Bush promised more for Iraq.

"In a lot of places, the infrastructure is as good as it was at prewar levels, which is satisfactory, but it's not the ultimate aim. The ultimate aim is for the infrastructure to be the best in the region," Bush said.

U.S. officials at the time promised a steady supply of 6,000 megawatts of electricity and a return to oil production output of 2.5 million barrels a day, within months.

But the insurgency changed everything.

"Good morning, gentlemen," a security contractor in shirt-sleeves said crisply late last week, launching into a security briefing in what amounts to a reconstruction war room in Baghdad's Green Zone, home to much of the Iraqi government.

Other private security contractors hunched over desks in front of him, learning the state of play for what would be roughly 200 missions that day to serve the 865 U.S. reconstruction projects underway -- taking inspectors to work sites, guarding convoys of building materials or escorting dignitaries to see works in progress, among other jobs.

A screen overhead detailed the previous day's 70 or so attacks on private, military and Iraqi security forces. The briefer noted bombs planted in potholes, rigged in cars, hidden in the vests of suicide attackers. There were also mortar attacks and small-arms fire. The briefer also noted miles of roads rendered impassable or where travel was inadvisable owing to attacks, and some of the previous day's toll in terms of dead and wounded.

Colored blocks on the screen marked convoys en route, each tracked by transponders and equipped with panic buttons.

To one side, a TV monitor scrolled out the day's news, including McCoy's remark to reporters that December was the worst month on record for Iraqi contractors working on reconstruction, with more killed, wounded or kidnapped than during any other month since the U.S. invasion.

"For every three steps forward, we take one step back. Those are the conditions we face," said Col. Bjarne Iverson, commander of the reconstruction operations center. He followed with a comment often used by American authorities in Iraq: "There are people who just want us to fail here."

The heavy emphasis on security, and the money it would cost, had not been anticipated in the early months of the U.S. occupation. In January 2004, after the first disbursements of the $18.4 billion reconstruction package, the United States planned only $3.2 billion to build up Iraq's army and police. But as the insurgency intensified, money was shifted from other sectors, including more than $1 billion earmarked for electricity, to build a police force and army capable of combating foreign and domestic guerrillas.

In addition to training and equipping police and soldiers, money has been spent for special operations and quick-response forces, commandos and other special police, as well as public-order brigades, hostage-rescue forces, infrastructure guards and other specialized units.

In the process, the United States will spend $437 million on border fortresses and guards, about $100 million more than the amount dedicated to roads, bridges and public buildings, including schools. Education programs have been allocated $99 million; the United States is spending $107 million to build a secure communications network for security forces.

Hundreds of millions of dollars were shifted to fund elections and to take Iraq through four changes of government. Funds were also reallocated to provide a $767 million increase in spending on Iraq's justice system. The money has gone toward building or renovating 10 medium- and maximum-security prisons -- early plans called for four prisons -- and for detention centers nationwide.

Tens of millions of dollars more are going to pay for courts, prosecutors and investigations. Millions are going to create safe houses for judges and for witness protection programs.

The criminal justice spending has been intertwined with the drive to try Hussein. The costs have been high, including $128 million to exhume and examine at least five mass grave sites.A Gap in Perspective


The shifts in allocations have led Stuart Bowen, the inspector general in charge of tracking the $18.4 billion, to talk of a "reconstruction gap," or the difference between what Iraqis and Americans expected from the U.S. reconstruction effort at first and what they are seeing now.

The inspector general's office is conducting an audit to quantify the shortfall between expectations and performance, spokesman Jim Mitchell said.

McCoy, the Army Corps of Engineers commander for reconstruction, cites a poll conducted earlier last year that found less than 30 percent of Iraqis knew that any reconstruction efforts were underway. The percentage has since risen to more than 40 percent, McCoy said.

"It is easy for the Americans to say, 'We are doing reconstruction in Iraq,' and we hear that. But to make us believe it, they should show us where this reconstruction is," said Mustafa Sidqi Murthada, owner of a men's clothing store in Baghdad. "Maybe they are doing this reconstruction for them in the Green Zone. But this is not for the Iraqis."

"Believe me, they are not doing this," he said, "unless they consider rebuilding of their military bases reconstruction."

U.S. officials say comparatively minor sabotage to distribution systems is keeping Iraqis from seeing the gains from scores of projects to increase electricity generation and oil production. To showcase a rebuilt school or government building, meanwhile, is to invite insurgents to bomb it.

If 2006 brings political stability and an easing of the insurgency, Americans say, the distribution systems can be fairly easily repaired.

"The good news is this investment is not in any way lost; they're there," said Dan Speckhard, the director of the U.S. reconstruction management office in Iraq. "They will pay off, they will be felt, if not this month, then six months down the road."

While the Bush administration is not seeking any new reconstruction funds for Iraq, commanders here have military discretionary funds they can use for small reconstruction projects. The U.S. Agency for International Development is expected to undertake some building projects, as it does in 80 other countries, with money from the foreign appropriations bill.

Special correspondent Naseer Nouri contributed to this report. © 2006 The Washington Post Company

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...006010200359_pf.html
U.S. Engineer Views Work Done So Far With Pride


By Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, January 2, 2006; A10




BAGHDAD -- Speeding off to another rebuilding project, Maj. John Hudson of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers wheeled out of the driveway of one of his many prides and joys: the headquarters of Iraq's new broadcast regulatory body, a sunlit building with an open floor plan, overlooking the Tigris River.

As Hudson's convoy popped onto the street, an Iraqi driver nearby -- trained to stop dead at the sight of any one U.S. Humvee or two or more sport-utility vehicles -- slammed on his brakes. The Iraqi sat stoically as a car rear-ended his, the crunch of metal audible through the bulletproof windows of Hudson's SUV.

Hudson kept talking about his projects, without spilling a drop from his travel cup of Starbucks coffee, sent from home.

"A lot of the high-end finish materials still have to be imported," Hudson said, referring to the seamlessly laid marble tiles in the new offices of the National Communication and Media Commission. The marble for the $5.2 million offices came from Italy, Hudson presumed.

"Craftsmanship," said Hudson, a blue-eyed 35-year-old from Colorado Springs. "A lot of pride and workmanship in that project."

Later, at an Army Corps of Engineers office in the Green Zone -- the fortified site of much of the Iraqi government -- Hudson, in flak jacket and helmet, spread his hands lovingly on a map of Baghdad. "Two youth centers. Two fire stations -- those are in some of your poorer neighborhoods. Baghdad highway patrol. A facility for the SWAT team. A new perimeter wall for Doura," a power plant in Baghdad's insurgency-ridden south. A checkpoint on a southern road into the city. An electrical substation.

Hudson picked out the sites instantly, his finger stopping on each one. The projects are among 90 under his domain and among 3,600 projects in an $18.4 billion reconstruction package for Iraq due to peak, and be completed, this year.

British private security contractors escorted Hudson on his trip. A siren signaled the coming of the convoy, sending some pedestrians scrambling even as others stubbornly slowed. One vehicle ran interference, guarding against suicide bombers that prowl Baghdad in search of Western convoys. Hudson has had the good fortune never to come close to a bombing, he said, never to hear more than a few gunshots on his visits once or twice a week to work sites.

The broadcast agency headquarters, with a wall of windows opening up to a Tigris River glittering in the morning sun, is easily one of the most beautiful buildings in Baghdad.

"The people working here seem kind of excited about moving in," Hudson noted.

Next stop, a children's hospital. On one side, in the wing not yet touched by the U.S. money and American and Iraqi engineers, mothers in black shrouds and fathers in black leather jackets cradled infants as they stood in the cold to press into a chaotic admitting office. In the dark inside the wing, children lay in arms or on floors, or milled, wailing, in a waiting room.

"Last time I was here they had them in there two at a time," Hudson said, surveying incubators pushed up against a dirty wall, tiny, thin babies lying mute inside. In limited English, Taref Fawdhil, a physician, conceded that some infants here had died from diarrhea and septicemia.

Across the courtyard, workers pushed wheelbarrows and swept up dust in a newly renovated wing of the facility, the first phase of a $2.9 million overhaul of the children's hospital. Project quality supervisor Anmar Abdul Karim pointed to the panels that would deliver oxygen and suction fluids at each bed, to the reverse-osmosis system that would deliver some of the rare clean water in Baghdad, to the placement of a clock in every room so that nurses would know when to hand out medication. Karim was particularly satisfied with an isolation ward, with self-contained ventilation and climate systems that engineers built in part from instructions found on the Internet.

Karim reminded Hudson of the last time when they were on the old side of the hospital, when parents who had brought their child in mistook the Army engineer for a doctor. The baby died, Karim said.

The final stop took Hudson to a women's hospital that will tend more than 300 patients when a $5.75 million renovation is complete. Iraqi hospitals normally are decrepit facilities, with grim paint and mysterious stains. At this hospital, Hudson and project chief Mohammed Hassani pointed out an Internet cafe, a cafeteria and a flower shop.

"No excuse ever now for Iraqi husbands not to grab some flowers before they go upstairs," Hudson said. Distracted, he pointed to a dropped ceiling. "Plumb and flush and straight. They've done a good solid job with them."

Hudson liked it all.

"Even if it's something grubby like a sewage system, I think it's exciting,'' he said.

"Some of these places, we don't even know where the sewage goes. The system's so jury-rigged,'' he said. Fixing it all, he said, "will take years."

Hudson will return to Colorado Springs around March. Money for the U.S. reconstruction package here is scheduled to run out around the end of the year. International donors largely have not kept their pledges to pick up the tab for reconstruction. Iraqis have balked at the painful economic reforms necessary to win foreign loans to do the work. Insurgents want to destroy it all. Civil war would do the same.

"Guys like the doctor give me confidence they're certainly going to do their very best," Hudson said. "We'll have to see how all that stuff works out." © 2006 The Washington Post Company

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...006010101080_pf.html
Major Oil Refinery in Iraq Reopens
Police Begin Escorting Deliveries to Gas Stations Across Country


By Nelson Hernandez
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 2, 2006; A09




BAGHDAD, Jan. 1 -- Iraq's most productive oil refinery reopened Saturday after closing for 10 days under the threat of insurgent attacks, a move that might ease a fuel crisis that has worsened long lines of anxious buyers at gas stations across the country. But the battle over the linchpin of Iraq's economy -- its enormous oil supply -- is far from over.

A police official in Kirkuk said Iraqi and U.S. forces had killed a Kurdish demonstrator who was part of a rally in the city demanding free kerosene and gasoline. The protesters set fire to two gas stations in the city. Also, a bomb exploded at an oil pipeline near a refinery in Baghdad, the Associated Press reported.

The Baiji refinery in northern Iraq reopened after police began escorting delivery trucks from the refinery, roughly 150 miles north of Baghdad, to gas stations all over the country, Ahmed Ibrahim, the distribution manager of the refinery, said in an interview.

The refinery had closed in December after insurgents threatened to kill drivers making deliveries of gasoline to gas stations around the country. Assem Jihad, an Oil Ministry spokesman, said last week that the shutdown was costing $20 million a day. Ibrahim said that the refinery, fully stocked with gasoline it could not ship out, was being forced to burn its supply of crude oil because trucks from Turkey and Jordan could not take it away.

The shutdown was suffocating the country's supply of gasoline and led to long gas lines. Though Iraq is estimated to have the world's third-largest oil reserves, it imports gasoline because its oil-industry infrastructure has deteriorated so badly following years of fighting and economic stagnation.

Insurgent threats and attacks on oil pipelines, delivery trucks and gas stations have picked up since the government's recent decision to increase gasoline prices sharply. The move, demanded by Western governments as a condition of forgiving Iraq's debts, has been deeply unpopular among residents used to Iraq's traditionally low, heavily subsidized gasoline prices.

The protest in the Rahim Awa neighborhood of Kirkuk, in an oil-rich part of northern Iraq, appeared to have been sparked by the price hikes. The demonstration was initially permitted by the authorities but soon spun out of control as arguments and fistfights broke out across the neighborhood, police Gen. Sarhad Abdul Qadir said in an interview.

The police fired a volley of warning shots and the crowd began attacking police cars and breaking windows. Police called for help from U.S. troops to break up the riot. Qadir said that five civilians were wounded in the clashes, one of whom later died. Police imposed a curfew in the city starting at 6 p.m., Qadir said.

Insurgents detonated 14 car bombs across the country Sunday, eight of them in the capital, according to reports from the Associated Press and a police spokesman. Two Iraqi civilians were killed in a car bomb attack against a convoy of U.S. troops in Baiji, said Capt. Hakeem Muhammed, an Iraqi police spokesman.

The remaining attacks killed no one, according to the Associated Press.

In a raid involving helicopter-borne troops of the 101st Airborne Division, forces detained a high-ranking former Baath Party member and suspected insurgent financier in northern Iraq as well as his three sons, a U.S. military spokesman and an Iraqi police officer said.

Accounts of the raid on Hay Sufon, a village near the town of Hawija, about 30 miles southwest of Kirkuk, did not agree on details. Lt. Col. Fattah Abdullah, of the Hawija police, said in an interview that the operation took place Sunday morning and was conducted by the Americans. In an e-mailed statement, Lt. Col. Edward Loomis, a U.S. military spokesman, said that it happened Saturday afternoon and was led by the Iraqi army, supported by American troops.

Abdullah identified the detainee as Atiya Shindakh, a former Baath official in the northeastern, predominantly Kurdish region of Iraq. Loomis would not identify the detainee.

In Baghdad, a Sudanese official said that insurgents had released six kidnapped members of its embassy's staff after Sudan announced it would close the embassy as the kidnappers had demanded, the Associated Press reported.

The AP also reported that gunmen had killed the 17-year-old son of a Palestinian diplomatic attache Saturday. Insurgents have repeatedly attacked Arab diplomats from countries that have opened embassies in Iraq in what is described as an effort to keep foreign governments from having relations with the Iraqi government.

Special correspondents Naseer Nouri and Omar Fekeiki in Baghdad and Salih Saif Aldin in Baiji contributed to this report.

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

So the US budgets $18.4 billion for reconstruction. Turns out that a large portion of that money is needed elsewhere (security, etc.). The money redirected is not going to be replaced. So the original use of the money (like, reconstruction) is no longer important?

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"Go yell at an M&M"

I dunno. I guess to an extent you are right. But I think it's more of a "What's the point of rebuilding something if it will get blown up a week later?" deal. I don't have many answers.

But I do know what I would have done differently (bear in mind this is based on the subset of available material about the rebuilding of Iraq, so I may not have read all the good stuff, and this isn't really directed at you per se):

Any and all rebuilding efforts should have been heavily focussed on manual labor provided by Iraqis. This accomplishes several things: 1) it gets Iraqis employed 2) this employment helps spur on the economy 3) having people employed occupies their time, they bitch less and are a part of the rebuilding themselves 4) being a part of the rebuilding gets a lot of Iraqi "buy in" to the process 5) it also gets the "good" Iraqis to have a vested stake in the buildings and efforts of rebuilding themselves 6) this means that good Iraqis will be pissed when insurgents/terrorists blow up the building they spent weeks rebuilding.

Iraq isn't just the central front in the war on terror (if you believe it to be that at all). We're talking about a clash of cultures. This is hundreds of thousands of repressed people being freed, learning what democracy is. We've grossly underestimated the effect of "learned helplessness" and what years of oppression will do to people. We need to help give them opportunities to stand up and enjoy freedom. And the biggest way you do that is to give people a chance to earn an honest days living. The Iraqis want jobs, they want to provide for their kids, they want to feel like they've accomplished something. It's sad, but there are of coure going to be people in Iraq who think "At least under Saddham we had reliable power", because they lived with it for so long it's hard to divorce oneself from that lifestyle. Humans hate change, even if it is going from oppression to freedom.

So hopefully in the future we'll be able to read about (or I'll discover the articles/reports) on how much Iraqi manual labor we employed. The story (from the WaPo) from the early rebuilding phase of an Iraqi cement plant is the best example of this I can think of. The US rebuilders (Army Engineers) wanted to spend a couple of million USD to rebuild a plant to get it back up to full operation. With 1/10th the money the US would have used, the Iraqis fixed the thing up in 1/10th the time and got it to 80% operational capacity. We were so stuck in building things to US regs, and doing it the high-tech way that we didn't see all the quick fixes that were available (and cement is the #1 limiting factor for construction in Iraq, you don't get anything done without it). This isn't meant to be overly critical of the US, or the brave soldiers over there. What they are doing to me is amazing. But part of the process has to be us "allowing" the Iraqis to help themselves. It's a process, we're all getting there, but it's interesting to watch.

Coincidentally, I heard a report on NPR about the funds spent on reconstruction, and my first thought was about how much money we spent there that just turned around and came back to US companies.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

"Any and all rebuilding efforts should have been heavily focussed on manual labor provided by Iraqis. This accomplishes several things: 1) it gets Iraqis employed 2) this employment helps spur on the economy 3) having people employed occupies their time, they bitch less and are a part of the rebuilding themselves 4) being a part of the rebuilding gets a lot of Iraqi "buy in" to the process 5) it also gets the "good" Iraqis to have a vested stake in the buildings and efforts of rebuilding themselves 6) this means that good Iraqis will be pissed when insurgents/terrorists blow up the building they spent weeks rebuilding."

I agree that your position is one that would work here, but it is a different world over there. One of my relatives has spent a couple of tours in Iraq, and on the last one his major responsibility was to contract with Iraqi companies to do reconstruction. In a large number of instances (the way he talked it was more than half the time), the lead contractor would get killed because he was working with the Americans. Once he was killed the project would come to a halt and at that point anything on site would get stolen or destroyed. The process would start again, only the vast majority of qualified people were either dead or too scared to participate in American rebuilding efforts.

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You're not stuck in traffic. You ARE traffic.

Any and all rebuilding efforts should have been heavily focussed on manual labor provided by Iraqis.

I believe they have tried this to very little avail. As noted above, there is a real fear of working with the Americans since in many cases, the American army or contractors are supplying the security (another reason why we should leave). In addition, there is a shortage of skilled labor, to build to our standards, which complicates things.

I think our government recognizes this and have placed their hope in a reduction in violence with the recent elections, and the hope that a coalition will motivate the citizens to work for peace. That of course, is the million dollar question.

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You sir, are my new hero! - Trifan 11/13/2008

Casey, you are a wise man - blueraider_mike 11/13/2008

Casey, This is an astute observation. - Slowbern 11/17/2008

Oh sure, throw the "people die" argument at me ;-)

I should have realized that aspect, and I'm sure that is one of the major limiting factors of this strategy.

I think part of my hope is that actions like that would further wedge the normal Iraqis from the terrorists (I don't use insurgent here intentionally, if an Iraqi is killing an Iraqi I view it as terrorism, and if it is a foreigner they are a terrorist and not an "insurgent"). If normal average Iraqis are just showing up to get money to feed their families, and terrorists blow them up, then I'd hope that would motivate the common Iraqi to demand the terrorists leave.

I think this would have been possible implement (or is still), but would take upfront planning with the Imam's to get them to publicly state all Iraqis who are willing should help rebuild their sovreign nation with their own hands, and that the faster they rebuild their own infrastructure the quicker they can kick the stupid Americans out.

Obviously hate and fear won that battle, but I still have hope. An excellent data point from you though, thanks.