Bush wants to shift $3.3 billion to strengthen Iraq security

Bush wants to shift $3.3 billion to strengthen Iraq security
Funds would be diverted from rebuilding projects
Tyler Marshall, Los Angeles Times
Monday, September 6, 2004

Washington -- The Bush administration is preparing to seek congressional approval to divert $3.3 billion earmarked to rebuild Iraq's shattered infrastructure into programs focused mainly to establish law and order.

The move comes against a backdrop of steadily deteriorating public security in the country as it approaches a crucial first round of elections set for January.

Those working on the changes said the proposed reallocation amounts to nearly one-fifth of the $18.4 billion Congress approved last November to rebuild Iraq. They said the shift would delay vital electricity, water and sewage projects -- all crucial to restoring Iraq's economy and building public support for the country's struggling interim government.

Instead, the money would go to an array of other programs, including $1.8 billion to strengthen the government's shaky security organizations and additional funds to soak up unemployment. In a country where idle men with little hope for work make easy recruits for a virulent insurgency, job creation is closely linked to improved security.

In part, the changes reflect a reordering of priorities after the June 28 transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqis from the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority that administered the nation after the fall of Saddam Hussein. That shift left U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte, rather than CPA administrator Paul Bremer, the highest-ranking American in the country.

At another level, however, the move underscores the administration's assessment that substantial changes are necessary to control an insurgency that has grown in strength and sophistication despite U.S. military efforts to contain it. Officials at the State Department working on the reconstruction revisions said the shift in focus is part of a realization that funding even the most important projects makes little sense if conditions on the ground prevent their completion.

(more)

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/09/06/MNGCO8KHRK1.DTL

kind of $$$$$ ..thanks to him and his filthy rich friends who don't believe in supporting your Country.

they were so steady, so sure, while selling this war, now they're making it up as they go along.

tooth and nail. Wishful thinking, I know.

Like Homeland security that is damaging many of our state budgets

:grr:

Ask your buddies in Big Oil for help. They're making the big profits now and this really is for their benefit.

There has not been any oil out of Iraq in weeks....



An Iraqi pipeline is ablaze following a huge terrorist attack that halted all exports from Kirkuk. A local police official told AFP that a pipeline supplying gas to a major electrical plant south of Kirkuk was attacked by insurgents.(AFP/File/Marwan Ibrahim)

use some of the unaccounted for $83 gazillion he ripped us off for last year? :mad:

Jenn

so we best rape the treasury again so their crooked cronies can be further enriched. :grr:

Can't seem to do it. No $$ for it. So just about anybody can smuggle just about anything into major US seaports and put it on a truck bound for Anywhere, USA.

Yeah, more $$ to protect Halliburton off shore holding companies doing profiteering in Iraq will make everybody safer... everybody holding a lot of shares, huh Cheney?

... forces has already been spent, and private security goes away if they aren't paid? Might have also been part of the reason for the request from the administration for an emergency advance on next year's appropriations.

secure and safe at home. How the hell can we make Iraq secure and safe?

All you have to do is to look out on DC from any one of an number of highrise condos and apartments in VA and DC to know that there is nothing they can do to guarantee agains another terrorist attack in this country. If they want to attack us, when they are ready, they will. It's a waste of emotion and money to pump all this into a false sense of security while important social programs and services are routed to pump money into tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations for fake security ventures that really can only stop the attacks "we plan for" and not those of so-called "terrorists."

:eyes:

to Halliburton and others so their executives will fund more 527s...

He is never told "No" so he keeps asking.......and keeps getting.

What, did Halliburton have some more flat tires on their SUV's and need to buy new ones?

????

Americans Health Inssurance

Hmmm...maybe they should find that money first before robbing the American taxpayer more?

Now we can just proceed to entrenching the new dictatorship.

All they ever do is hound you for money to feed their habit. We have a junkie for a president. We need an intervention and some tough love.

the reason they were so addicted in the first place was that they were so uncomfortable in their own skins. bush is a walking, talking discomfort machine, with no humanity left in his empty-shelled soulless carcass.

"In a country where idle men with little hope for work make easy recruits for a virulent insurgency, job creation is closely linked to improved security."

So, why divert money from infrastructure, which is useful and provides work for the unemployed. I suppose they want to divert money and men into an army for the puppet government instead.