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Al Jazeera (English)
    Baghdad Burning Blog (by Riverbend, an Iraqi civilian girl)
            Dahr Jamail's Blog from Baghdad
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Iraqi Civilian Deaths ... caused by Bush's unprovoked war

 

Iraq rebuilding under threat as US runs out of money
(Rory Carroll and Julian Borger, The Guardian, September 9, 2005)
Key rebuilding projects in Iraq are grinding to a halt because American money is running out and security has diverted funds intended for electricity, water and sanitation, according to US officials. . . . Plans to overhaul the country's infrastructure have been downsized, postponed or abandoned because the $24bn (£13bn) budget approved by Congress has been dwarfed by the scale of the task. . . . "We have scaled back our projects in many areas," James Jeffrey, a senior state department adviser on Iraq, told a congressional committee in Washington, in remarks quoted by the Los Angeles Times. "We do not have the money." . . . Water and sanitation have been particularly badly hit. According to a report published this week by Government Accountability Office, the investigative branch of Congress, $2.6bn has been spent on water projects, half the original budget, after the rest was diverted to security and other uses. . . . The report said "attacks, threats and intimidation against project contractors and subcontractors" were to blame. A quarter of the $200m-worth of completed US-funded water projects handed over to the Iraqi authorities no longer worked properly because of "looting, unreliable electricity or inadequate Iraqi staff and supplies", the report found. . . . Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress also said administrative bungling had played a part. . . . It is in this context that many of the estimated 20,000 foreign security contractors now in Iraq - some paid more than $1,000 a day - are employed. Mr Bowen said $5bn had been diverted to security. . . . Some areas now get less than four hours of electricity a day, and there has been a surge in cases of dehydration and diarrhoea among children and the elderly. The cost of providing enough electricity for the country by 2010 is put at $20bn. . . . Fuel shortages have produced mile-long queues at petrol stations. Crude oil production is around 2.2m barrels a day, still below its pre-war peaks, according to the Brookings Institution in Washington.

posted by LoZo 6:36 AM