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

To: steve dietrich who wrote (180035)	1/16/2006 5:59:48 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Respond to of 281500

Steve, From what I saw, and people I spoke with, Iraqis WERE integrated into the reconstruction projects. However, one of the problems was how to properly "vet" the owners of these companies in order to assure they weren't Ba'th party members, or if they were, to ascertain their involvement and insure that money provided to them was not then given to the Ba'thist resistance. Some argued we should have taken more of a "Patton" approach, namely retaining trained personnel, regardless of their Ba'thist or tribal ties. But the urge to De-Ba'thify, like de-Nazification, was too politically hot for practical and logical plans to be implemented. Also, there was quite a bit of priorization required, primarily with power and water/sewage systems. Without power, why build anything? And since Baghdad was the only place that had power 24 hours per day (while the rest of the country had 3-6 hours, or NONE), there was quite an effort towards redistribution of power throughout the entire country so everyone received their fair share. But here... take a stroll through the US AID reports on this link for more information. usaid.gov But was it implemented 100% error free... By no means. Did the delays cost us plenty in local goodwill, or avoiding promoting conspiracy theories (Iraq being quite famous for them)?? No... But we're there, we're fixing it slowly, and regardless of what mistakes have, are being, or will be, made.. the goals remain the same. Stabilizing the country and promoting a democratic government and economic and political accountability. Hawk