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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: PROLIFE who wrote (736172)	4/10/2006 9:13:50 AM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Re: "opinion" Yep... except for the quantifiable hard facts, such as the numbers, the dollars spent, etc. Little disagreement there. We have ALREADY SPENT as much of the American taxpayer's money on 'reconstruction' in Iraq as we did on Germany after WW II, and that's twice as much as we spent on reconstruction in Japan after WW II --- BOTH of these figures, by the way, are adjusted for inflation and are real dollars, normalized for the lesser value of today's dollar. After three years in which the U.S. government allocated more than $20 billion for Iraq reconstruction, a bill now making its way through Congress adds only $1.6 billion this year, just $100 million of it for construction — not for building schools or power stations, but for prisons. Even after billions were spent on power plants and substations, electricity generation still hasn't regained the level it had before the U.S. invasion of 2003. When Fallon's experts keep the lights burning late, they're relying on emergency U.S. generators in their "Green Zone" enclave, since the rest of Baghdad gets power only a few hours a day. Barely one-third of the water-treatment projects the Americans planned will be completed. Only 32 percent of the Iraqi population has access to clean drinking water now, compared with 50 percent before the war, according to the U.S. special inspector-general for Iraq reconstruction. About 19 percent of Iraqis today have working sewer connections, compared with 24 percent before 2003. Of more than 150 planned health clinics, only 15 have been completed, under a contract ending this month. Oil production, meanwhile, has stagnated, averaging 2.05 million barrels a day in mid-March, short of the 2.5 million-a-day U.S. goal, and far short of Iraq's production peak of 3.7 million in the 1970s. Fewer than one-quarter of the rehabilitation projects for the oil industry have been completed. ...The U.S. Embassy estimates Iraq must export 1.65 million barrels a day just to begin accumulating funds for repairing more roads and leaking water pipes, laying sewer lines, rebuilding hospitals and making other capital improvements. But in early March its foreign sales averaged only 1.38 million barrels. "It is unclear how Iraq will finance these additional requirements," U.S. congressional auditors said in a recent study. That budget gap will cripple the Iraqis as they try to pick up where the U.S. government leaves off. They estimate they'll need $20 billion to rebuild the electricity system alone. On water treatment, Ghazi Naji Majid, director-general of the Public Works Ministry, says plans for six major plants are on hold "until the money becomes available."