Glad I converted you. Now, do you have any influence with the administration?
The first thing Iraq needs immediately is jobs. It doesn't matter if it's government jobs or make work jobs, as long as it's jobs. Every job means one less disgruntled Iraqi thinking about joining the budding guerilla movement or the local extortion gang. And not that there is no work. Heck, just protecting the power and gas and oil pipelines will consume hundreds of thousands. Rebuilding roads and other low tech endeavors probably a million or so. Etc.
5,000,000 jobs will probably be enough to get a job for everybody that wants to work and is idle today. At an average of $40 per month, it's $200 million a month, a twentieth of the military occupation cost (how about that!) If those jobs last a couple of years (that's past Bush's reelection date, by the way), they are going to consume less than a fourth of the $20 billion.
Fix the electric power. Iraq needs an extra 2,000 MW of capacity. You can get this with second hand gas fired power plants (natural gas is practically free in Iraq) that can be gotten for peanuts all over the western world right now. The cost of installing and getting those plants operational is less than $1 billion -- if you give the job to Iraqis rather than Halliburton and cut a few corners. Halliburton will probably want $2 billion. So, we have solved two of Iraq's biggest problems, and we still have $14 billion to spare.
Of course, in a year or two the oil production should be up to 3 or so million barrels per day, which should be bringing around $20 billion a year, and at that time Iraq will be self-sufficient.
I wonder how many American and Iraqi lives such a program will save, to say nothing of how much it will reduce long term occupation and guerilla fighting costs.
Kyros |
