LAT op-ed: After $30B spent, Iraqi PM says reconstruction must begin

Marshall Plan, Minus the Plan
$30 billion later, Iraq's reconstruction is more distant than ever, a Times reporter says.
By T. Christian Miller
T. CHRISTIAN MILLER is a Times staff writer and author of "Blood Money: Wasted Billions, Lost Lives and Corporate Greed in Iraq," to be published this month.
August 10, 2006

More than THREE YEARS after the United States kicked off the biggest nation-building effort since the Marshall Plan, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki last month made this astonishing plea to Congress: "It is imperative that the reconstruction start now!"

Americans can be forgiven for asking, "Huh?" After all, haven't taxpayers already spent more than $30 billion trying to turn Iraq into a thriving democracy? Wasn't Iraqi oil money supposed to be paying for the rebuilding by now? What happened?

The answer is, precious little. Although the U.S. has already burned through more cash in Iraq than it did in Germany or Japan during the entire post-World War II recovery period, it has failed to spark peace or economic renewal.

Iraq still produces less oil than it did under Saddam Hussein, according to the most recent State Department figures. Electricity generation is hovering above prewar levels, but higher demand means that many Iraqis — including the entire population of Baghdad — are worse off than under Hussein.

Scores of health clinics and hospitals are unfinished, their doors and windows walled up with concrete. Raw sewage continues to flow directly into the Tigris River. The U.S.-trained police force is riddled with death squads. And then, of course, there is the unrelenting daily violence unleashed by the same Sunnis and Shiites who were by now supposed to be happily employed in U.S.-funded work projects....

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-miller10aug10,0,889079.story?track=mostemailedlink

I guess the Iraqi prime minister is an anti-American aging hippy communist who's ignoring all the good news coming out of Iraq because of his radical leftist bias.

and Congress signed blank check after blank check.

They should all be ashamed since it was no secret that the no-bid contractors were overcharging while not delivering. We've known this from the beginning.

So will taxpayers have to pay twice, and even then, will the work be done?