Mailbaggage

For this installment, let's open the old mailbag, shall we?

"John" of "Minnesota" asks, "Are you out of your freaking mind?"

This has been covered before, "John", but yes, I probably am. Thanks for asking.

Next up, "Joel" from "Washington" writes to say "The Left complain that the completed work is largely shoddy and often unusable, while the Right complain that the real story of Iraq reconstruction has not been told. When you say a project is completed, what is known about its condition, and whether it is providing the designed benefit? Finally, any idea how many of these projects are to fix stuff the U.S. military broke in the first place?"

Good questions, all. And for lack of another topic today, I'll regurgitate what I wrote to "Joel" and "other people" last night. For a project to be complete requires that USACE sign off. They are the contracting entity in most cases, so it makes sense that they verify that the work is complete. This could mean little more than the project was constructed as per the plans and specifications. Knowing the situation here, I imagine that they are doing as little as possible. However, what follows construction here oftentimes is the necessary training and equipment installation that turns a building into a school, for instance, or turns a pole shed into a firehouse. This final step can lag behind physical construction for months or longer, in which time the building can be ignored, damaged, bombed, or completely vandalized and stripped of anything of value.

Those who are pro-reconstruction program cite the first part (complete physical construction means complete, dammit), those opposed, the second (until blackboards and fire trucks have been delivered, the project is worthless, jerk). I have no idea as to how many projects get pushed successfully (i.e. in a timely manner) through both components. I don't know if anybody does. What I do know is that the second component, what we call, simply, CD/OMS/NONC (Capacity Development / Operations, Maintenance, and Sustainment / Non-Construction), will be most of the new money dumped down this rathole over the next three or four years. Likely another billion dollars in total.

What's the "designed benefit" of a clinic, anyway? Is it a healthy child? Is it a working facility? A jobs program? A way to keep idle hands off of weapons? A way to jump start the local economy? A way to win the peace?

Maybe some. Maybe all.

As for fixing what we broke? We didn't break that much, physically. It was precision bombing for the greater part, destroying bridge decks (not suspension components), runways (easily patched), and the Iraqi Army (boom). What held most of this country together for the past thirty years has been birds' nests, baling wire, and the threat of death if your power plant fails to generate. Once we eliminated that threat, the smart folks who kept the infrastructure in tact packed their camels, got the hell out of Karbala, and immigrated to Jordan with their money and smart kids. This flight of the worker bees will take a generation to fix, if and once things stabilize.

And if this answer wasn't enough, this selfsame "Joel" asks, "It is also reported that Iraqis now have less electricity and potable water and health care and oil production than under Saddam: how are these matters squared with the reconstruction program claims of such high rates of completion?

Geez. Questions, questions, questions! Who's got time to answer all of these danged questions? You know, I'd guess that if a hundred million more citizens like "Joel" were busy asking these pesky "questions" five years ago instead of watching the final rounds of American Idol, we never would have been in this "war" at all.

_Then_ where would the reconstruction effort be? Hmmm?

Write your Congressman. I'm sure he knows.