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

To: cnyndwllr who wrote (172877)	10/20/2005 8:25:09 AM
From: Mary Cluney	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

I'd like to "fix" Iraq. What do you see as a "fixed" Iraq and, assuming we had all the money to do the job, what could we do with those resources that might create the fix you envision? Nobody can make us fix Iraq. The reality is that we are too powerful for anyone to make us do anything against our wishes. But, we owe it to ourselves and to the Iraqi people that we fix Iraq. We have to fix it - whatever it takes. It will take a lot of money and resources. First of all we have to spell out to the world what our intentions are in Iraq. We are going to spend XXX $ Billions to repair the infrastructure. We are going to spend XXX $ billions to provide security and train the Iraqi security forces. Come hell or high water we are leaving Iraq within 3 years. First thing after that we will have to stabilize Iraq. That means we have to put in two to three hundred thousand troops to occupy Iraq. That will stop the violence. We have to spend XXX $ billions to fix the infrastructure so that Iraqis have clean water, sanitation, and electricity. We have to step up the training of Iraqi forces so that we can get out within 3 years. My back of the envelope estimate is about 1 $ trillion do this. If we have to pay for it all ourselves - that is what we will have to do. But it should not come to that. A percentage of that has to come from Iraqi Oil. We have to use diplomatic arm twisting to get money from other oil dependent countries to contribute money. Once they start seeing results from our occupation, other countries will have to provide occupation forces to relieve our troops. Hey if we have enough resolve to defy the world and go into Iraq and mess the place up, we can show enough resolve to fix up Iraq. It is as much for ourselves as it is for the Iraqi people. If after all this, Iraq breaks up - so be it. But I don't think that will happen.