[Vision2020] U.S. Iraq Projects Are Failing, so says collaborator

[Tony]

Some people on this list cannot accept when they are wrong.  When caught 
with their facts down, they blame the messenger.

The question was, whether one can vouch for a conclusion reached regarding 
THOUSANDS of reconstruction projects base on an audit of ONLY EIGHT. 
Clearly only a fool, a virulently leftist newspaper, or a Bush-hating 
liberal academic would do so.  Oops, excuse my redundancy.

Nick, you suggest that republicans opposed the Special Inspector General, 
yet acknowledge that they chose not to eliminate his position EVEN WHEN THEY 
CONTROLLED CONGRESS.  Doesn't sound like an effort to "trash" to me.

As for outsourcing projects to private firms, Don Rumsfeld did not brutalize 
the Iraqi people foe 3 decades, that was Saddam Hussein.  If we benefit 
economically from such outsourcing most of the time, we will get stuck with 
the tab on occasions like this one where most firms are owned by the state. 
Such an exception alone does not constitute a persuasive indictment of 
outsourcing.

It would behoove you Nick, to stop leaping on the Times' anti-Bush tirade at 
every opportunity.  Try counting to ten before disseminating a hasty 
assessment in the future, hmmm?

-T
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <nickgier at adelphia.net>
To: <vision2020 at moscow.com>
Sent: Sunday, April 29, 2007 3:34 PM
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] U.S. Iraq Projects Are Failing


> Greetings:
>
> Some people on this list cannot read a newspaper story very carefully. 
> The recent federal audit on Iraq reconstruction was not meant to be 
> exhaustive.
>
> The team planned to visit more sites, but they were too dangerous to 
> visit.  The primary responsibility of an occupation force is security, and 
> in five years we have utterly failed in that task.
>
> The team did focus on eight projects that the Bush administration had 
> declared successful.  The audit concluded that only one of the 8 could be 
> called successful.  A failure rate of this magnitude does not bode well 
> for the rest of the projects.
>
> It should be stressed that this Office of Special Inspector General for 
> Iraq Reconstruction was almost trashed by conservative Republicans last 
> year.  Good thing that we now have some accountability with a Democratic 
> Congress.
>
> A good general comment on Iraq Reconstruction can be found in this 
> statement from Wikipedia:
>
> "Some say that the reconstruction would have been both much more efficient 
> and inexpensive if more contracts were granted to local Iraqi firms, many 
> of whom were shut out of the process due to that fact that they were 
> state-owned.  Congressman Henry Waxman was once told by members of the 
> Iraqi governing council that paying Iraqi companies to rebuild Iraq 
> instead of American ones would save American tax payers 90% of the costs."
>
> Rumsfeld's dream of outsourcing military projects to private companies has 
> turned into a nightmare of gigantic cost overruns and corruption 
> everywhere.
>
> Nick Gier
>
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