Our perception here in the U.S. of how the war in Iraq is going is a little like our observation of distant stars. Though the stars still appear to be shining, actually some of them have collapsed into black holes millennia ago. With that in mind the Washington Post story on Monday, “U.S. Has End In Sight on Iraq Rebuilding,” convinced me that regardless of what the Bush administration says, they have already given up Iraq for lost.
Reports Ellen Knickmeyer, “The Bush administration does not intend to seek any new funds for Iraq reconstruction in the budget request going before Congress in February, officials say. The decision signals the winding down of an $18.4 billion U.S. rebuilding effort in which roughly half of the money was eaten away by the insurgency, a buildup of Iraq's criminal justice system and the investigation and trial of Saddam Hussein….’The U.S. never intended to completely rebuild Iraq,’ Brig. Gen. William McCoy, the Army Corps of Engineers commander overseeing the work, told reporters at a recent news conference. In an interview this past week, McCoy said: "This was just supposed to be a jump-start."
“Jump-start?” Excuse me, we’re the ones who flattened the place and now we’ve stopped bothering to rebuild it? Before our invasion Iraqis received 4000 megawatts a day. Today they get 400 megawatts less for just twelve hours a day – except in Baghdad where officials say they provide six hours a day of power but locals claim the actual number is much lower.
And we wonder why 82 percent of Iraqis in a recent British poll strongly oppose the occupation and 45 percent support the insurgency?
The administration first lied us into a pre-emptive war of self-defense, then ex post facto claimed the war was to spread democracy. Exactly what kind of democracy are they expecting to take root if the only one hiring is Abu Musab Al-Zarquawi?
They’re not. The Bush Administration has already given up Iraq for lost, only they haven’t yet had the honesty to inform the American people -- or the young soldiers they keep shovelling into harm's way.