washingtonpost.com — This was not how the rebuilding of Iraq was supposed to go. In the fall of 2003, six months after the U.S. invasion, President Bush promised Iraq "the greatest financial commitment of its kind since the Marshall Plan." Top administration aides said they considered that plan, which helped rebuild Europe after World War II, to be a model for Iraq.
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vamparesNov 14, 2006
Blame the George.The armed forces are a bunch of middle class machine gun monkeys who the Georges staff cater to. When you've got money on your mind and your mind on your trousers you get nothing done.Sooner they get to sucking the oil out of there the sooner the Iraqi's can start paying for it. Of course once American forces pull back off from on top of the wells they'll be blown up.
deesnutzNov 14, 2006
Yet the Republicans will bitch about American social programs that help fellow Americans. But you won't hear a peep from them on this bulls**t. Republicans are a bunch of hypocrites.
rabiddogmaNov 14, 2006
Yeah goddam it. We just need to keep shoveling bags of cash in unmarked bills to politically connected unqualified Republican contractors with no accountability and everything will work out just fine. The rebuilding is going great! I can see pictures of it on Fox News, and Rush Limbaugh told me so! They wouldn't LIE to me would they?
rabiddogmaNov 14, 2006
@ pawchikapawpaw"japan took at least fifty years before they even opened up their country for trade, five years. iraq isn't made of legos, it has a lot of political and infrastructural damage that needs to be repaired."Point of fact: Japan was open for trade by 1952. By the late 1960's it was already well on it's way to becoming an economic superpower. By your calculations Japan wasn't open for trade until the mid-90's?!? What the f**k are you talking about?? Not only had they been rebuilt at by this point, they had already gone through several boom bust periods and had become one of the wealthiest countries on earth.
idiggthispageNov 14, 2006
Read "State of Denial. You’ll see how the republicans lied. They destroyed Iraq and botched reconstruction. Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bremer, Wolfowitz, Rice etc… – all incompetent greed mongers need to be tried in Germany and the Netherlands for war crimes. They were repeatedly warned by patriots such as Powell, Garner, US Army, the CIA, and history that their plans were bizarre and overly optimistic … The neocon republicans, in their arrogance, didn’t listen. The result: 100,000’s dead. 3x that maimed, and much more dangerous world (source=US Intel Estimate). All the while, the neocons got filthy rich: they went to Goldman Sacks months before the war to learn how to profit: neocon republicans suck.
idiggthispageNov 14, 2006
America was told we would be out of Iraq in less then 60 days. America was told it wouldn't cost us anything. America was told there would be minimal causalities. America was told there were WMD's. *** Republicans lied to America. ***Republican Neocon are just another hate group such as skin heads and neo-Nazi’s but with a diff: they hijacked the American political system and made a lot of people filthy rich doing it.
idiggthispageNov 14, 2006
Powell warned the republicans way ahead of the invasion: if you break it you own it...The republicans broke Iraq and murdered its civilians.The American middle class is fixing it via the blood of soldiers and taxes. Halliburton and the rich own the stocks. They are drinking martinis, burning $200 cigars and driving Bentleys. Oh, and that 70 billion tax break really goes a long way. Thanks for nothing you treasonous neocon republicans and don’t forget to empty your piggy bank (Halliburton) on the way out in 2008.
willcode4beerNov 14, 2006
$9billion?big deal, Iraq is currently costing about $2billion/week
rabiddogmaNov 14, 2006
@ pawchikapawpawI hate to break it to you but we won the war--but we're losing the occupation. But that's what you get when you try to do something as wrong as the war and occupation of Iraq with for all the wrong reasons and with no planning. I mean these guys went in there with priorities like flat taxes, free trade, busting labor unions and new copyright laws. What the f**k is that? Not only that but their rebuilding plan consisted of little more than handing out bags of cash to any fly by night, politically connected company with no accounting for what they were doing. In addition there is little resemblance to what is happening in Iraq today to what we were told would happen after the invasion. We were lied to about every aspect of the war--bottom line--there is little chance that there even can be a good outcome from the fiasco at this point. So you might want to stop lying to yourself about it at this point. Your boys f**ked it all up royal.