Abstract

Shameless in Iraq

The article looks at the reconstruction of Iraq after the Iraq War of 2003. In the run-up to the June 30, 2004, handover, U.S. occupation powers have been unabashed in their efforts to steal money that is supposed to aid a war-ravaged people. The State Department has taken $184 million earmarked for drinking water projects and moved it to the budget for the lavish new U.S. Embassy. If occupation chief Paul Bremer and his staff were capable of embarrassment, they might be a little sheepish about having spent only $3.2 billion of the $18.4 billion Congress allotted--the reason the reconstruction is so disastrously behind schedule. At first, Bremer said the money would be spent by the time Iraq was sovereign, but apparently someone had a better idea: Parcel it out over five years so Ambassador John Negroponte can use it as leverage. With $15 billion outstanding, how likely will Iraq's politicians be to refuse U.S. demands for military bases and economic "reforms"? After losing the fight to keep control of Iraq's oil money after the handover, occupation authorities grabbed $2.5 billion of those revenues and are now spending the money on projects that are supposedly already covered by U.S. tax dollars. Meanwhile, insurance brokers selling sudden-death policies to contractors in Iraq have doubled their premiums, with insurance costs reaching 30 percent of payroll. Rather than models of speed and efficiency, the contractors look more like overbilling, underperforming, lumbering beasts, barely able to move for fear of the hatred they have helped generate.