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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: bentway who wrote (167359)	7/26/2005 8:25:08 PM
From: geode00	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

"Talib Abu Younes put his lips to a glass of tap water recently and watched worms swimming in the bottom. Electricity flickers on and off for two hours in Muthana Naim's south Baghdad home then shuts off for four in boiling July heat that shoots above 120 degrees. Fadhel Hussein boils buckets of sewage-contaminated water from the Tigris River to wash the family's clothes. The capital is crumbling around angry Baghdadis. Narrow concrete sewage pipes decay underground and water pipes leak out more than half the drinking water before it ever reaches a home, according to the U.S. military. Over 18 months, American officials spent almost $2 billion to revive the capital ravaged by war and neglect, according to Army Gen. William G. Webster, who heads the 30,000 U.S. and foreign troops and 15,000 Iraqi soldiers known collectively as Task Force Baghdad. But the money goes for long-term projects that yield few visible results and for security to protect the construction sites from sabotage. As a result, Iraqis have seen scant evidence of improvement in their homes, streets or neighborhoods. They blame American and Iraqi government corruption. "We thank God that the air we breathe is not in the hands of the government. Otherwise they would have cut it off for a few hours each day," said Nadeem Haki, 39, an electric-goods shop owner in the upscale Karrada district in the east of the capital...." news.yahoo.com ======== Hey, it's shock, awe and then sending the bill to the American family for payment. If Baghdad is this bad, how bad is Fallujah? $700 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan and the new generation of terrorists? Yep, that's fiscal responsibility.

To: bentway who wrote (167359)	7/27/2005 10:33:05 AM
From: one_less	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

"A large part of the problem appears to be a desire by the Iraqi security forces to show their toughness by responding to the brutality of insurgents with equal brutality of their own. Such conduct is clearly wrong. The country is on the brink of civil war, while struggling to support a fragile liberal democracy. The players took off the white gloves long ago and on some days, I am sure they can't define the enemy other than its the combatants not standing to the left or the right. "Suicide bombers wearing police uniforms have struck several times, some of whom may have obtained their uniforms by joining the force. U.S. officials acknowledge that infiltration of the Iraqi army and police by insurgents is a problem." Those involved directly have no choice but to stay the course and trust their conscience. Those who serve only a political agenda are doomed to personal failure.