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Politics : THE 2004 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: GROUND ZERO™ who wrote (1468)	2/19/2004 9:32:08 PM
From: Orcastraiter	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2164

MSNBC is demohack stuff? OK I see, hide your head in the sand, or read it and be informed. BushCo continues to eff up in Iraq, and he'll be back on the ranch in Crawford soon, permanently. Probably the most important article I have read about Iraq to date: msnbc.msn.com Orca

To: GROUND ZERO™ who wrote (1468)	2/19/2004 9:37:05 PM
From: Orcastraiter	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2164

DISORGANIZATION AND TURF BATTLES The Bush administration’s favorite statistic from Iraq is the 1,595 schools it has just finished rehabilitating. This is, after all, the human face of occupation—freshly painted walls, American know-how and generosity, all wrapped up in smiling, adorable faces. And though that number is still less than a fifth of Iraq’s 10,000 schools, it seems like amazingly fast work. The problem: many of the “rehabilitated” schools don’t look ready for the morning bell. NEWSWEEK visited five schools in Baghdad’s Camp Sara neighborhood, all of which were among those listed as rebuilt, all by different Iraqi contractors working for Bechtel. None had enough textbooks, desks or blackboards. Most had refuse everywhere, nonfunctioning toilets and desks made for two kids that were accommodating four. Even Ahmed Majid Jassim, a pro-U.S. headmaster who says that “Americans have made a great effort,” comments, “I’ve seen rebuilt schools, and this isn’t one of them.” It’s not quite as bad as the suspiciously sandy U.S. concrete that caused schools in South Vietnam to collapse in the 1960s, generating support for the Viet Cong. But the good-will project is also not creating quite as much pro-American enthusiasm as the Bushies would like. What’s the problem? A lack of accountability, it seems. One Iraqi construction engineer who worked on school projects says it’s not that Iraqi firms are corrupt and incompetent. To meet the U.S. deadline for fast refurbishment, the occupation authority set a short time frame, then Bechtel hired contractors, who in turn hired subcontractors and even sub-subcontractors. But few U.S. officials seemed to follow up with oversight. As one USAID official admits, “Saddam had better accountability” in his economic affairs, as brutal as he was, than the CPA does. Bechtel proudly points out that 102 of its 140 USAID contracts were subbed to Iraqi firms. But many of these sub-subcontractors cut corners as they tried to meet Bechtel’s very short deadline. “The original tender for our school called for air conditioners in every classroom,” said an Iraqi engineer named Marwan. Once the subcontractor got it, it was an air cooler. “Once we got it, it was a ceiling fan for $11 apiece.” At the Al Qaqa primary school, headmistress Haibat Abdul Hussein said the Iraqi contractor walked off the job shortly after starting, leaving the school a mess of construction debris and incomplete work. “I can’t deal with this anymore; I don’t even know what happened. All I know is they said the Americans told them to stop working,” she said. She planned to organize a demonstration in front of the school in protest. So perhaps George W. Bush should heed the words of a 13-year-old schoolgirl who attends one of those Bechtel-renovated schools, with new equipment supplied by the U.S. government. “In the old days they would have made me carry a bag with Saddam’s face on it,” she told her uncle, an Iraqi translator. “Now they’re making me carry one with an American flag.” The child resents it, her uncle says. And that should hardly surprise any red-blooded American. The United States wants a free Iraq? Well, then, it should free the Iraqis to do what they can do best.