Perhaps then Kerry, if President, would put more effort and funding towards those ends?
Do you know how much effort Bush is putting into that endeavor?
Here's some research I conducted:
defense.gov
Because of the cost of equipping the new Iraqi army, Eaton said the decision was made to organize the first four battalions as light-motorized infantry units, which he added is "most training-intensive and least equipment-intensive of any military units." Such units essentially consist of large and small transport vehicles and direct-fire weapons, he said.
There's evidence of cutting corners right there. Let me translate...the ready guys are armed with AW's, like AK47's and M16's, riding around in pick ups and flatbeds.
And here's how our money is being spent:
Included in the president's $87 billion request are nearly $66 billion to pay for continued military operations both in Iraq and Afghanistan; the remaining $21 billion would be earmarked for reconstruction efforts, almost all of it to be spent in Iraq. For instance: Upgrading the electric power infrastructure, $5.7 billion; equipping Iraqi police and military personnel, $4.2 billion; upgrading water and sewer systems, $3.7 billion; improving the oil industry, $2.1 billion.
The American taxpayer, for example, is being asked to pick up the cost of 600 radios and telephones at a cost of $6,000 apiece; pickup trucks at $33,000 apiece; Iraqi prisoners will be incarcerated at $50,000 per year, more than twice the cost than American prisons; and Iraqi entrepreneurs will receive business training costing $10,000 per month, more than two and a half times the cost of an education at Harvard Business School.
pbs.org
And this is the guy doing the "procurement" for the Iraqi Army:
BAGHDAD — Ziad Cattan was a Polish Iraqi used-car dealer with no weapons-dealing experience until U.S. authorities turned him into one of the most powerful men in Iraq last year — the chief of procurement for the Defense Ministry, responsible for equipping the fledgling Iraqi army.
As U.S. advisors looked on, Cattan embarked on a massive spending spree, paying hundreds of millions of dollars in Iraqi funds for secret, no-bid contracts, according to interviews with more than a dozen senior American, coalition and Iraqi officials, and documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times. The money flowed, often in bricks of cash, through the hands of middlemen who were friends of Cattan and took a percentage of the proceeds.
This is must read stuff more at:
latimes.com
So basically out of the $200+ billion spent in Iraq, and another billion being spent everyday...The Iraqi Army gets around 4 to 5 billion of that...and it's spent very wastefully, so the effective energy of that money is depleted. It's about 2.5% of the total being spent (wasted) in Iraq.
Now we can't get the job done with $200 billion and the best of equipment...and we expect that the Iraqis can do this same job with 2.5% of that?
I think you and Bush are not being realistic one bit. Bush gives lip service to building the Iraqi Army...but that takes equipment, money and concentrated effort and a willing soldier. I hear that after the operation in Falujah the battallion of Iraqis involved disbanded.
The reality of the situation, under Bush is a long tough slog...like Rumsfeld described. But really the problem is a disbanded Iraqi Army...and the enormous task and cost of rebuilding that Army.
Orca |
