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UNIVERSITY OF COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATISM (what is this?) 

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COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATISM 203E*
*President Bush's lies and deception moral clarity, honesty and integrity 
on the
Iraq invasion - Part B (a continuing saga)

In this course you will learn about the abundant lies, deception or intent to deceive moral clarity, honesty and integrity displayed by compassionate conservative2 President George W. Bush (and his administration speaking on his behalf) on the Iraq invasion (Part B). This part covers his (Government's) miscellaneous statements on the reasons/justifications provided for invading Iraq - AFTER the invasion, and statements relating to the reconstruction/democracy building in Iraq and the order/chaos/security/terrorism situation in Iraq after the invasion. Make sure you drop by again when the Election 04 (2004) campaign starts picking up steam, so that you can refresh your memory on his compassion. 

Please note that the statements made by Bush or his spokespersons/administration3 - as cited in column 3 of the tables below - are by default extracted from one or more of the links shown in column 4. If the source of the statements is different from the link(s) in column 4, then a URL is explicitly provided in column 3. For feedback and corrections, please go here.

A detailed acknowledgement of the sites from which the information below was obtained is listed at this location. In particular, I would like to acknowledge the following sites where I got the vast majority of links from: Atrios/Eschaton, Politics, Law and Autism, Calpundit, Buzzflash, Daily Howler, Talking Points Memo, Thinking it Through, BushwatchSpinsanity

Total Compassion Con credits 2 available from this course to date = 89

Last Update: 12/01/2003

 

"To questions about whether the attacks on Sept. 11 turned Bush into a better leader, Rove answered that Bush was a great leader all along," the Washington Post reported on December 12: " 'I for one don't buy this theory that September 11th somehow changed George Bush,' " Rove said. " 'You're just paying better attention. He is who he is.' "
"In a lot of ways he is exactly how he's always been, and I think people sort of see him now for how he's always been - very steady, and very disciplined, and a lot of resolve, but also a whole lot of compassion and a way to really connect with people," Laura [Bush] told Tim Russert on December 23.
(from Mark Crispin Miller, The Bush Dyslexicon)

Touché. 

MSNBC - 10/13/03 (bold text is my emphasis):
"...A key Republican lawmaker, Richard Lugar of Indiana, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that “the president has to be president” as his top advisers appeared to quarrel. Monday, Bush responded by telling Tribune Broadcasting, “The person who is in charge is me.”
       “In all due respect to politicians here in Washington, D.C., who make comments, they’re just wrong about our strategy,” Bush said. Referring to Paul Bremer, the U.S. civilian administrator in Iraq, by his nickname, Bush added: “We’ve had a strategy from the beginning. Jerry Bremer is running the strategy, and we are making very good progress about the establishment of a free Iraq.”..."

 

Once you are done with the above sections, you may choose another course by picking one of the options below

 

JUSTIFICATION FOR INVASION (POST-SCRIPT) <go back to the top>

Compassion Con credits total = 9

# Topic President Bush or his representative's Compassionate statement Some uncompassionate facts Compassion Con Credits
JU1-01 Justification for Iraq invasion

Post-script

Bush

"...President Bush shot back Tuesday at those suggesting his administration inflated prewar intelligence data on Iraq's weapons program. He said the most important fact was that "the people of Iraq are free."

Eric Alterman (Altercation/MSNBC):
"...A friend writes:
...However — take a look a the following excerpts from Bush’s March 17th address to the nation on the eve of war. In that speech, Bush tells the American people that the major reason for war (if not the ONLY reason for war) is the imminent threat of danger of Saddam’s WMD...Take note especially of the “threat” language that is boldfaced:
 - “The United States and other nations did nothing to deserve or invite this threat. But we will do everything to defeat it. Instead of drifting along toward tragedy, we will set a course toward safety. Before the day of horror can come, before it is too late to act, this danger will be removed.”
- “The United States of America has the sovereign authority to use force in assuring its own national security.”
- ”[Saddam Hussein] and terrorists groups might try to conduct terrorist operations against the American people and our friends. These attacks are not inevitable. They are, however, possible. And this very fact underscores the reason we cannot live under the threat of blackmail. The terrorist threat to America and the world will be diminished the moment that Saddam Hussein is disarmed.”
- “We are now acting because the risks of inaction would be far greater. In one year, or five years, the power of Iraq to inflict harm on all free nations would be multiplied many times over. With these capabilities, Saddam Hussein and his terrorist allies could choose the moment of deadly conflict when they are strongest. We choose to meet that threat now, where it arises, before it can appear suddenly in our skies and cities.”
- “Free nations have a duty to defend our people by uniting against the violent. And tonight, as we have done before, America and our allies accept that responsibility.”

His full speech can be found here..."
1
JU1-02 Justification for Iraq invasion

Post-script

Bush (6/17/03)

"...President Bush shot back Tuesday at those suggesting his administration inflated prewar intelligence data on Iraq's weapons program. He said the most important fact was that "the people of Iraq are free." [my emphasis]

Bush (6/23/03)

"...He reminded listeners that U.S.-led military operations had toppled governments in Afghanistan and Iraq - two countries he charged were terror havens. "Fifty milion people in those two countries once lived under tyranny, and now they live in freedom," Bush said..."

  Dana Milbank (Washington Post) (7/1/03):
"...President Bush acknowledged yesterday that the United States faces a "massive and long-term undertaking" in Iraq, but said U.S. troops would prevail over what his administration described as well-trained militants that have been killing and injuring U.S. forces..."These groups believe they have found an opportunity to harm America, to shake our resolve in the war on terror and to cause us to leave Iraq before freedom is fully established [CG emphasis]," Bush said. "They are wrong and they will not succeed."..."

Hassan Fattah (The New Republic):
"...On June 9, Al Sa'ah newspaper, one of the new Iraqi broadsheets, published a story alleging that American GIs had raped two teenage girls in the southern governorate of Wasit. According to Al Sa'ah, 18 soldiers raped the girls and left them for dead; one died and the other was killed by her family. The story was a fabrication. Ni'ma Abdul-Razzaq, Al Sa'ah's senior editor, claims he didn't realize it until he scoured Wasit and determined the story was a lie.
The American occupation forces responded aggressively. The U.S. Central Command, which oversees Iraq, warned, "Coalition forces will take every step necessary to correct this report and ensure the Iraqi media becomes a credible source of information for the public." That evening, Abdul-Razzaq issued a retraction and fired the story's reporters. But, despite his actions--standard Western procedure for dealing with falsifying journalists--Iraq's administrator, L. Paul Bremer, quickly made clear just what those necessary steps would be, declaring a new order that placed restrictions on the media that "incite violence." In effect, Bremer imposed a code of conduct on the Iraqi press: He announced that the United States would ban publications that incite violence against the U.S. military, ethnic groups, or women and those that support the Baath Party. Reporters caught violating the decree can be fined, arrested, and detained.
Bremer's proclamation is part of a trend toward muzzling Iraq's nascent press freedom. To be sure, the Iraqi press is freer than under Saddam Hussein, but there are worrying signs in the relationship between American authorities and the media. Last month, Major General David Petraeus, commander of much of northern Iraq, seized control of Mosul's only TV station, citing the station's broadcast of a letter purportedly written by Saddam. "It's our responsibility to maintain the safe and secure environment," Petraeus told reporters. "That includes, if necessary, taking steps to avoid the transmission of segments such as that." According to The Wall Street Journal, an American officer was removed from duty when she argued against Petraeus's decision. The irony was not lost on Iraqis who listened to reports about Saddam's letters on the BBC.
Even the new U.S.-funded Iraqi Media Network (IMN) has not been immune to meddling. American advisers reportedly tried to prevent IMN reporters from airing Koranic recitations, a tradition in much of the Arab world, even though most of the reporters felt they would enhance the station's cultural legitimacy. Meanwhile, Bremer has the power to advise the IMN on any part of its broadcasts, including its editorial decisions. Worse, the United States brought in the wife of Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani, who was close to former occupation head Jay Garner, to approve coverage. "It would have been like Ari Fleischer reviewing Dan Rather's scripts," notes Don North, the channel's Canadian-born adviser. Talabani's wife never showed up for work.
But the code of conduct announced after the Al Sa'ah imbroglio represents potentially the most sweeping oversight yet. Bremer's aides say the code is similar to press laws in most Western countries. But Bremer's new regulations define incitement much more broadly than Western press laws..."

(Compassiongate Aside: I don't support hate speech and false accusations, but there is a major double-standard here. Imagine what would happen if serial liars and haters compassionate folks like Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Ann "Nuke-them" Coulter, Sean Hannity, etc. were banned altogether in the U.S. not only because they were responsible for wilfully spreading false compassionate information about the previous POTUS - the Supreme Commander of the United States Armed Forces!)

1
JU1-03 Justification for Iraq invasion

Post-script

Bush

"...President Bush shot back Tuesday at those suggesting his administration inflated prewar intelligence data on Iraq's weapons program. He said the most important fact was that "the people of Iraq are free." "I know there's a lot of revisionist history going on. But he is no longer a threat to the free world," Bush said..."

(a) Regarding the "revisionist" historians...
USA Today
:
"...Asked what Bush meant by "revisionist history," Fleischer said, "the notion that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction before the war." However, Fleischer said that, since Bush didn't identify who he thought was revising history, he wouldn't either..."

Alexander Keyssar (Washington Post):
"...His national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, made a similar claim a few days earlier. They both seem to think there is something suspect or illegitimate about revisionist history.
Yet revising prevailing interpretations of historical events is precisely what historians do. As new evidence becomes available, or new research methods are developed, or the passage of time shifts our perspective, historians revise their accounts of the past and their explanations of key trends and developments: The writing of history is a continuing, collective effort to attain closer approximations of the truth...
...recast our understanding of Reconstruction. Older, white supremacist histories that depicted that critical era as a struggle between heroic, well-meaning white southerners and ignorant ex-slaves, unscrupulous carpetbaggers and vengeful northern Republicans have been debunked by masses of evidence...The Pentagon Papers, as well as other documents and memoirs, have contributed to revisionist histories of the war in Vietnam. For the past 10 years, the history of the Cold War has been rewritten thanks to the opening of Soviet archives after the collapse of the Soviet Union...
The issue here is not that President Bush has an inadequate appreciation of the historian's craft. (This may be true, but it matters to only a few of us.) It is, rather, that the president and his advisers want to promulgate an official version of history and to deride as untrustworthy any challenges to their account...
...revisionist histories -- multiple, competing, conflicting accounts of important events -- ought not be treated as suspect; they are instead expressions of intellectual and political life in a democracy. The suppression of revisionist history has generally been a mark of dictatorships -- from Hitler to Stalin to Saddam Hussein himself. Or have we forgotten that?..."

(b) Regarding Saddam "no longer being a threat to the free world"...
Reuters:
"...White House officials said on Friday it was unclear whether Saddam Hussein was alive or dead although other officials acknowledged there was growing evidence he might be alive. The New York Times, citing government officials, said the renewed belief that Saddam survived missiles strikes during the war stemmed from intercepted discussions between members of the Saddam Fedayeen paramilitary force and Saddam's intelligence service. The intercepts indicated Saddam was alive and needed to be protected, the newspaper said...Separately, a U.S. official said there was now a "slight preponderance" within the U.S. intelligence community toward the belief that Saddam was alive as opposed to dead but that it was still not conclusive..."
Andrew Buncombe (The Independent):
"...Paul Bremer, the US administrator in Iraq, admitted earlier this month that the failure to find Saddam had an impact on efforts to rebuild the country. "I would obviously prefer that we had clear evidence that Saddam is dead or that we had him alive in our custody," he said. "It does make a difference because it allows the Baathists to go around in the bazaars and villages as they are doing, saying 'Saddam, is alive and he's going to come back and we're going to come back'."..."

3
JU1-04 Justification for Iraq invasion

Post-script

Wolfowitz for Bush

"...Q: There was an article published yesterday in Vanity Fair which quoted you as saying that weapons of mass destruction were chosen for bureaucratic reasons to justify war in Iraq.

Wolfowitz: I'm sorry, first of all, that isn't even the way the article puts it, but if you want to know what I actually said I would suggest you read the transcript of the interview which is on our website..."

The New Republic (etc.):
"...So let's take Wolfowitz up on his suggestion and go to the transcript. Here's the exchange with Tanenhaus:
Q: Was that one of the arguments that was raised early on by you and others that Iraq actually does connect, not to connect the dots too much, but the relationship between Saudi Arabia, our troops being there, and bin Laden's rage about that, which he's built on so many years, also connects the World Trade Center attacks, that there's a logic of motive or something like that? Or does that read too much into--
Wolfowitz: No, I think it happens to be correct. The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason, but--hold on one second--[emphasis added]
At that point there's a pause, and then Wolfowitz aide Kevin Kellems interjects a clarification about an earlier issue in the interview concerning how long troops might stay in Iraq. Then Wolfowitz cuts him off to say that:
[T]here have always been three fundamental concerns. One is weapons of mass destruction, the second is support for terrorism, the third is the criminal treatment of the Iraqi people. Actually I guess you could say there's a fourth overriding one which is the connection between the first two.
So, true enough, Wolfowitz did acknowledge that there was a trio of concerns with Saddam--WMD, support for terrorists, and human rights violations--which filled out the broader strategic picture. But when he tried to tell reporters in Singapore "what I actually said," he was clearly being dishonest, having earlier said that decision to make WMD "the core reason" for the administration's case for war had indeed been dictated by bureaucratic considerations..."
1
JU1-05 Justification for Iraq invasion

Post-script

Bush (6/17/03)

"..."We asked other nations to join us in seeing to it that [Saddam] would disarm, and he chose not to do so, so we disarmed him."..."

Compassiongate
Let's see. "Disarm" refers to WMDs. None have been found. The Bush administration has been making contradictory statements about them, including stating that Saddam may have destroyed them or "moved" them or "hid" them. When we haven't the slightest clue where the WMDs are and Saddam is still around (as of 6/17/03), how in the world could we be sure we "disarmed him" ???
1
JU1-06 Justification for Iraq invasion

Post-script

Bush

"..."We gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn’t let them in," Bush said at the White House. "After a reasonable request, we decided to remove him from power."..."

Robert Parry (Consortium News):
"...With U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan sitting next to him and White House reporters in front of him, Bush lied. In reality, Hussein’s government had allowed the U.N. inspectors to scour the countryside for months and was even complying with U.N. demands to destroy missiles that exceeded the range permitted by international sanctions.
In early March, U.N. inspectors were requesting more time for their work and noting that the Iraqis finally were filling in details about how they had destroyed earlier stockpiles of weapons. But Bush cut the inspections short and launched his invasion.
Now, asserting a kind of kingly right to say whatever he wishes without contradiction, Bush revised the history to put himself in a more favorable light. The lie was so obvious that some Bush watchers suggest it indicates either a growing brazenness in his deceptions or a disconnect between Bush’s mind and reality..."

Dana Priest and Dana Milbank (Washington Post):
"...The president's assertion that the war began because Iraq did not admit inspectors appeared to contradict the events leading up to war this spring: Hussein had, in fact, admitted the inspectors and Bush had opposed extending their work because he did not believe them effective..."

Letters to the Editor (Washington Post):
"...Dana Priest and Dana Milbank described President Bush's statement that the United States gave Saddam Hussein "a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in" as "appearing to contradict the events leading up to war" [front page, July 15].
Wouldn't "a preposterous and outrageous lie" be a more accurate description of the president's statement?
STEVEN PATT..."

1
JU1-07 Justification for Iraq invasion

Post-script

Bush

"...Saddam Hussein is no longer a threat to the United States because we removed him, but he was a threat. Such a threat that my predecessor, using the same intelligence in 1998, ordered a bombing of Iraq. I mean, so—he was a threat..."

Daily Howler:
"...What a remarkable answer! How did Bush know that Saddam had WMD? Because he had used them—in 1988! And how did he know that Saddam was a major threat? Because of intelligence reports—from 1998! Can this possibly mean that the Bush Admin was working off five-year-old information? Here at THE HOWLER, we don’t have a clue. But pundits will know not to ask.
Was the Bush Admin using dated info? We don’t know, but it surely would matter. On the June 15 Meet the Press, Wesley Clark offered an intriguing thought about those AWOL WMD:
RUSSERT: Was there an intelligence failure? Was the intelligence hyped, as Senator Joe Biden said? Was the president misled, or did he mislead the American people?
CLARK: Well, several things. First of all, all of us in the community who read intelligence believe that Saddam wanted these capabilities and he had some. We struck very hard in December of ’98, did everything we knew, all of his facilities. I think it was an effective set of strikes. Tony Zinni commanded that, called Operation Desert Fox, and I think that set them back a long ways.
Did those ’98 raids set back Iraq’s programs? Here at THE HOWLER, we don’t have the foggiest. (Predictably, Clark’s comment provoked no discussion.) But yesterday, Bush referred to intelligence reports which would have predated those ’98 raids. Maybe his answer was simply lazy—but his answer was remarkably weak. But don’t worry. The press corps won’t notice..."
None assigned for purely compassionate reasons
JU1-08 Justification for Iraq invasion

Post-Script

Bush
(commenting on David Kay's report)

"...The report states that Saddam Hussein's regime had a clandestine network of biological laboratories, a live strain of deadly agent botulinum, sophisticated concealment efforts, and advanced design work on prohibited longer range missiles...[Saddam] actively deceived the international community, that Saddam Hussein, was in clear violation of United Nations Security Council resolution 1441 and that Saddam Hussein was a danger to the world..."

Powell for Bush

"...We are more convinced by the Kay report that we did the right thing..."

Fred Kaplan (MSN/Slate):
"...These statements were mustered to counter criticisms from Democratic senators who, upon reading the report, proclaimed that it proves only that Bush had no basis for whipping up prewar fears of an imminent Iraqi danger.
A close reading of the actual, unclassified report—which Kay delivered as testimony on Oct. 2 to a panel of several congressional committees—reveals not only that Bush's critics are closer to the mark, but something much more significant: that Saddam wanted and, in some cases, tried to resurrect the weapons programs that he had built in the 1980s, but that the United Nations sanctions and inspections prevented him from doing so.
First, let us dispose of the president's argument for taking the report as proof that Saddam posed a "danger to the world." On the White House lawn last Friday, Bush recited the report's finding that Iraq's WMD program "spanned more than two decades" and "involved thousands of people, billions of dollars."
The report does contain these figures, in precisely those words. However, it does not claim, or even pretend to suggest, that the WMD program consumed so much manpower or money toward the end of its run—i.e., on the eve of Gulf War II. In context, the numbers clearly refer to how much Iraq put into the program through its entire 20-plus-year duration. And elsewhere, the report notes that most of this effort was undertaken before Operation Desert Storm, the first Gulf War of 1991.
For instance, there's this eyebrow-raising sentence halfway into the report: "Multiple sources with varied access and reliability have told ISG [the Iraq Survey Group] that Iraq did not have a large, ongoing centrally controlled CW [chemical weapons] program after 1991. … Iraq's large-scale capability to develop, produce, and fill new CW munitions was reduced—if not entirely destroyed—during Operations Desert Storm and Desert Fox [Clinton's 1998 airstrikes], 13 years of UN sanctions and UN inspections."
Throughout the report, Kay kicks up a sandstorm of suggestiveness, but no more. He notes, in alarming tones, the discovery of "a clandestine network of laboratories and safehouses within the Iraqi Intelligence Service," including equipment "suitable for continuing CBW [chemical and biological weapons] research" (all italics—here and henceforth—added). This is an interesting finding, but it says nothing about CBW development or production or deployment, and proves nothing about whether the equipment was actually intended or designed for CBW purposes.
The report cites "multiple sources" who told Pentagon agents "that Iraq explored the possibility of CW production in recent years." But there is no indication Iraq went any further. In fact, the report adds, when Saddam asked a senior military official "in either 2001 or 2002" how long it would take to produce new chemical weapons, "he responded it would take six months for mustard" gas. Another senior Iraqi official, replying to a similar request in mid-2002 from Saddam's son Odai, estimated it would take "two months to produce mustard and two years for Sarin." 
Though the report doesn't say so explicitly, these exchanges reveal fairly conclusively that, in 2001-02, Iraq had no ongoing CW program. Just about any country, starting from scratch, could produce mustard gas or Sarin along this timetable, given access to the materials. Nor does the report cite any indication that, after posing the question, Saddam or Odai ordered production to commence.
One reason may be that Iraq had no chemical agents to churn into chemical weapons. The report says Iraq "may have engaged" in "research on a possible VX stabilizer" and in "research and development for CW-capable munitions." (Just about any munition can be CW-capable.)
"We have also acquired information related to Iraq's CW doctrine and Iraq's war plans for OIF [Operation Iraqi Freedom], but," the report acknowledges, "we have not yet found evidence to confirm pre-war reporting that Iraqi military units were prepared to use CW against Coalition forces." Indeed, the Pentagon teams' efforts "have thus far yielded little reliable information on post-1991 CW stocks and CW agent production."
The section of the report on Saddam's nuclear aspirations is still more revealing—and disingenuous. The section begins with the Pentagon teams learning from several sources that Saddam "remained firmly committed to acquiring nuclear weapons." But read the next two sentences: "These officials assert that Saddam would have resumed nuclear weapons at some future point. Some indicated a resumption after Iraq was free of sanctions."
In other words, Saddam might have restarted his nuclear-weapons program—except for the U.N. sanctions...
At a news conference shortly after his testimony, Kay shed more light on this curious connection within the "axis of evil." Saddam paid North Korea $10 million for the missiles. However, the North Koreans decided delivering the missiles was too risky because they thought the rest of the world was watching Iraqi transactions too closely. (North Korea kept the $10 million, though. Some axis.)
In another indication that the United Nations' prewar sanctions and inspections were working fairly well (though Kay never puts it that way), the report cites Saddam's attempt to convert the HY-2 coastal-defense cruise missile, which had a range of 100 km, into a land-attack missile with a range of 1,000 km. He planned to do this by replacing the HY-2's liquid-fuel rocket engine with a turbine engine from a Russian-built helicopter. However, the report notes, "To prevent discovery by the U.N., Iraq halted engine developing and testing and disassembled the test stand in late 2002 before the design criteria had been met."..."
1

 


RECONSTRUCTION OF IRAQ and DEMOCRACY BUILDING
<go back to the top>

Compassion Con credits total = 26

# Topic President Bush or his representative's Compassionate statement Some uncompassionate facts Compassion Con Credits
RE1-01 Bremer replacing Garner Wolfowitz for Bush

"...Wolfowitz said Garner hadn't been replaced. He had been subsumed: the Pentagon had planned all along to put someone like Bremer in charge..."

  Joe Klein (Time):
"...But this was nonsense; several military experts told me that Garner was replaced because he had been paralyzed by the political and diplomatic complexities of the job; Bremer was said to be more decisive..."

Karen DeYoung (Washington Post):
"...The appointment of L. Paul Bremer III early this month as the new head of the U.S. reconstruction effort in Iraq, portrayed by the Bush administration as part of a smoothly running postwar plan, was a hastily arrived-at decision by a White House increasingly worried about collapsing civil order in Iraq, according to senior administration officials. The decision to dispatch Bremer to Baghdad two months before retired Gen. Jay M. Garner was supposed to be replaced in the post came after senior White House advisers and President Bush agreed that both the image and reality of the reconstruction effort were flagging, officials said...
Postwar plans drawn up in January and February included the eventual installation of a senior civilian "of stature" to be in charge of non-military aspects of the occupation during an indefinite period between Garner's early efforts and the election of an Iraqi government. Bush, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell had interviewed and signed off on Bremer in April, but announcements of his appointment and departure were still seen as weeks, if not months, away.
Powell was "surprised" by the decision to advance Bremer's departure for Iraq, one official said, "but it was a nice surprise" since Bremer is a former Foreign Service officer..."

Joshua Hammer and Colin Soloway (Newsweek):
"...Last week the White House announced that Jay Garner, the retired general and chief administrator of Iraq, was out of a job, barely three weeks after his arrival in Baghdad. Several top aides are also leaving, including Barbara Bodine, a former ambassador to Yemen who had been in charge of reconstruction for the Baghdad region. Garner’s replacement is L. Paul Bremer, a counterterrorism expert at the State Department. At his first press conference in Baghdad, Bremer praised Garner and insisted that the handover reflected a longstanding plan to turn governance of Iraq to a “civilian administration.” But sources in both Iraq and Washington say that Garner’s brief tenure was a debacle—plagued by inexperience, bureaucratic infighting and inertia—and that the White House had grown alarmed at his failure to establish order and restore basic services in Baghdad. “It was amateur hour,” says a senior ORHA official..."

1
RE1-02 Iraq Stabilization Group Rice for Bush

"...said over the weekend that she had conferred with Mr. Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Vice President Dick Cheney about setting up the new entity [Iraq Stabilization Group]..."

David Stout (New York Times):
"...Mr. Rumsfeld said neither President Bush nor Ms. Rice had told him in advance of the new entity.
The fact that Mr. Rumsfeld was not informed is puzzling at first glance, since he and Ms. Rice are both members of the National Security Council, whose chairman is the president. The council, which includes several other cabinet officers and high-ranking officials, is the president's principal forum for considering national security and foreign policy issues with his top advisers.
The secretary said on Tuesday that he did not know why Ms. Rice had felt it necessary to send a memo about the new entity to cabinet officials, or to brief The New York Times about it. The Times reported the creation of the group in an article published Monday.
Alluding to the Iraq Stabilization Group, Mr. Rumsfeld expressed puzzlement over the reasons behind forming such an entity, implying that the move was little more than a bureaucratic change. "That's what the N.S.C.'s charter is," Mr. Rumsfeld said of the new group's purpose in his interview with The Financial Times. "The only thing unusual about it is the attention. I kind of wish they'd just release the memorandum."
Mr. Rumsfeld, who spoke to reporters Tuesday in Colorado Springs before a meeting of NATO defense ministers, said the Pentagon had received a one-page memo on Friday that the National Security Council would conduct "interagency coordination" in Iraq.
Ms. Rice said over the weekend that she had conferred with Mr. Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Vice President Dick Cheney about setting up the new entity. But her account seemed at odds with Mr. Rumsfeld's recollection. He told reporters that he did not recall the change being discussed. "I wouldn't know how to comment on it," he said.
At one point, when the interviewer persisted, the secretary lost his patience. "You don't understand English?" Mr. Rumsfeld said. "I was not there for the backgrounding," a reference to the briefing given to The New York Times.
But today, Mr. Rumsfeld said that communications over the new entity had occurred at a level below him, and that there was no problem with that. "The reality is that the National Security Council's responsibility is to do exactly what this one-page memo says they should do," he said. "It is not a problem or an issue."
At the White House today, Mr. McClellan also sought to dispel the impression that Mr. Rumsfeld had been left "completely in the dark about this new effort," as one questioner put it.
"It's important for the National Security Council to coordinate efforts here at a high level," Mr. McClellan said of the Iraq-rebuilding efforts. "We want to do everything we can to assist them in their efforts."
In the interview with The Financial Times, Mr. Rumsfeld did nothing to discourage the impression that he was quite annoyed. And it is no secret that Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Powell have had their policy differences over Iraq and other issues, with the defense secretary generally regarded as more hawkish..."
1
RE2-01 American soldiers in Iraq Rumsfeld for Bush (7/9/03)

"...Rumsfeld said the division's 3rd Brigade has already reached Kuwait and will be heading home this month. The 2nd Brigade, which had been in the region for 10 months, will be home in August and the 1st Brigade will return in September..."

Needlenose (via Atrios):
"...From the Associated Press today [7/14/03]:
The Army said Monday that thousands of 3rd Infantry Division soldiers have had their deployment in Iraq extended, dashing hopes that the troops would be home by September.
. . . Maj. Gen. Buford C. Blount III, the division's commander, said last week he hoped the division's 1st and 2nd Brigade Combat Teams of roughly 9,000 soldiers could return home to Fort Stewart within the next six weeks.
But homecomings for those soldiers, as well as the division's 3rd Squadron, 7th Cavalry Regiment, have now been postponed indefinitely, Fort Stewart spokesman Richard Olson said Monday.
"Now, that timeframe has basically gone away, and there is no timeframe," Olson said..."
None assigned for compassionate reasons
RE3-01 Iraq
resumption of utilities
Bush (8/9/03)

"...Life is returning to normal for the Iraqi people -- hospitals and universities have opened, and in many places, water and other utility services are reaching pre-war levels..."

Billmon/Whiskey Bar:
"...In Basra on Saturday, angry crowds burned a gasoline tanker and threw stones at British troops stationed in the city, protesting the utility shortages that have made life nearly unbearable in heat that reaches up to 125 degrees fahrenheit daily.
Today, residents in the region said the violence in Basra had worsened, and that two people had been killed and seven others wounded in clashes between irate mobs and British troops. They said more tanker trucks had been stolen at gunpoint and that Iraqi police had fled from other violent confrontations. 
Basra Protests Continue for Second Day

Washington Post August 10, 2003..."
None assigned for compassionate reasons
RE3-02 Iraq
resumption of utilities
Rumsfeld for Bush (9/5/03)

"...For a city that's not supposed to have power [Baghdad], there's lights all over the place. It's like Chicago..."

Billmon/Whiskey Bar:
"...BAGHDAD - Interruptions to the electricity supply in Baghdad, lasting for two or three hours at a time, several times a day, are causing havoc for thousands of residents of the Iraqi capital, particularly during the stifling summer heat that regularly soars to 45 degrees Centigrade.
I had to throw away 150 pieces of meat a week ago because it went bad in the heat," 50 year-old Hamid Ramadani, manager of the Spring Time restaurant on Kharada Street in Baghdad, told IRIN. "I can't arrange the food for my customers if I have to throw it in the garbage because it's rotten," he lamented.
A man passing by Ramadani's establishment said it was not just restaurants that were suffering badly. "In homes, at work, in the shops, no one can do any work, because there is no electricity," the passer-by, Ahmed Amel, told IRIN. "Maybe it's on for two hours then off for three. We have many difficulties," he said."
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Damage to power lines hits Baghdad residents hard September 11, 2003
Update 9/12 2:05 PM ET: 
In central Baghdad, meanwhile, a huge running gunbattle broke out for about 45 minutes Friday on a busy street along the Tigris River's east bank, where several of the city's largest hotels are located. No injuries were reported.

I suppose Rumsfeld would remind us that this kind of stuff used to happen all the time in Chicago back during Prohibition. Where's Elliot Ness when you really need him?..."

1
RE4-01 Iraqi war costs Rumsfeld for Bush

"...told a hearing that the “burn rate” for American money to fund the military presence in Iraq was now $3.9 billion a month—almost $1 billion a week..."

Christopher Dickey (Newsweek):
"...But that billion a week is just the beginning. It doesn’t include the cost of running Iraq’s government and rebuilding it, which could be an additional billion a month, according to rough U.N. estimates made before the war. Then there’s the matter of Iraq’s enormous debts. Last week the major creditor countries in the so-called Paris Club agreed to restructure about $21 billion worth, but estimates of the total external debt, including war reparations to Kuwait, run well over $100 billion. How will the reconstruction be funded? For the administration it’s an especially painful question, in part because it comes at a time when the U.S. economy is in the doldrums, when budget deficits are ballooning and when tax cuts are the preferred method of getting business churning again. No wonder “Rumsfeld lost his cool,” said a former senior official from the first Bush administration. “He was befuddled. I think he’s running out of confidence and wriggle room.”..."
None assigned. Just providing some uncompassionate facts.
RE4-02 Iraq war/ reconstruction costs Cheney for Bush

"...I didn’t see a one-point estimate there that you could say that this is the administration’s estimate. We didn’t know. And if you ask Secretary Rumsfeld, for example—I can remember from his briefings, he said repeatedly he didn’t know. And when you and I talked about it, I couldn’t put a dollar figure on it..."

Tim Russert on Meet The Press:
"...MR. RUSSERT: In terms of costs, Mr. Vice President, there are suggestions again—it was a misjudgment by the administration or even misleading. “Lawrence Lindsey, head of the White House’s National Economic Council, projected the ‘upper bound’ of war costs at $100 billion to $200 billion.”
       We’ve already spent $160 billion after this $87 billion is spent. The Pentagon predicted $50 billion: “The administration’s top budget official [Mitch Daniels] estimated that the cost of a war with Iraq could be in the range of $50 billion to $60 billion...he said...that earlier estimates of $100 billion to $200 billion in Iraq war costs by Lawrence Lindsey, Mr. Bush’s former chief economic adviser, were too high.”
       And Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of Defense, went before Congress and said this: “We’re dealing with a country that can really finance its own econstruction, and relatively soon. The oil revenues of that country could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years.” It looked like the administrations truly misjudged the cost of this operation.
       VICE PRES. CHENEY: No, I didn’t see a one-point estimate there that you could say that this is the administration’s estimate. We didn’t know. And if you ask Secretary Rumsfeld, for example—I can remember from his briefings, he said repeatedly he didn’t know. And when you and I talked about it, I couldn’t put a dollar figure on it.
       MR. RUSSERT: But Daniels did say $50 billion.
       VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, that might have been, but I don’t know what is basis was for making that judgment..."

Compassiongate: Either Daniels was lying being compassionate or Cheney was.

1
RE4-03 Iraq
war/ reconstruction costs
Daniels for Bush

"...dismissed Lindsey's prediction [of Iraq war costs being $100B - $200B] as "very, very high"...."

"...There's just no reason that this [rebuilding Iraq] can't be an affordable endeavor...."

Daniels for Bush

"...The United States is committed to helping Iraq recover from the conflict, but Iraq will not require sustained aid..."

Fleischer for Bush

"...quipped [that] the price of removing Saddam Hussein could be as low as "[t]he cost of one bullet, if the Iraqi people take it on themselves."..."

Rumsfeld for Bush

"..."I notice today everyone was saying, 'Oh my goodness, they did know what the war was going to cost.' And I have said repeatedly we don't know what the war is going to cost, and the truth is, we don't know what the war is going to cost. You can't know it, it's not knowable."..."

Rumsfeld for Bush

"...I don’t know that there is much reconstruction to do..."

David Gilson (Mother Jones):
"...As US troops approached Baghdad in late March, Donald Rumsfeld told reporters at the Pentagon: "I notice today everyone was saying, 'Oh my goodness, they did know what the war was going to cost.' And I have said repeatedly we don't know what the war is going to cost, and the truth is, we don't know what the war is going to cost. You can't know it, it's not knowable." Two days later, he went before Congress to ask for $62 billion in supplemental spending to fund the war...
In July, Paul Bremer, the head US administrator in Iraq, said that the cost of reconstruction is "probably well above $50 billion, $60 billion, maybe $100 billion. It's a lot of money."..."

Rep. Jim McDermott:
"...After passage of the latest $87 billion supplemental, the war in Iraq will have already cost the federal government more than $150 billion. 

*     In April, after the war started, Congress approved an initial $79 billion for military operations.  Of the $87 billion being requested now, $66 billion is for military operations- more than $50 billion of which is for Iraq.  So the military operations in Iraq alone have cost at least $130 billion.  This does not factor in reconstruction costs in Iraq, or continuing military and reconstruction costs in Afghanistan. 

*     Of the $87 billion request, $21 billion is directed to reconstruction efforts in Iraq.  However this is just the first installment on the reconstruction bill there.  It is estimated that the $21 billion is still at least $55 billion short of what the reconstruction will really cost.  Some Pentagon officials have confessed to reporters that the $21 billion is barely enough to make it through this fiscal year. 

*     So, we have already spent more than $150 billion on Iraq, and can realistically expect to pay AT LEAST another $50 billion plus….bringing the total to more than $200 billion.  Interestingly, that is the same number that former Bush Economic Advisor Lawrence Lindsey leaked before his abrupt departure...

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: 
Well, the Office of Management and Budget, has come up come up with a number that's something under $50 billion for the cost. How much of that would be the U.S. burden, and how much would be other countries, is an open question.” [Source: Media Stakeout, 1/19/03]..."

2
RE4-04 Iraq war costs Daniels for Bush

"...war with Iraq could cost between $50 billion and $60 billion...The New York Times reported Tuesday. Mitchell Daniels, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, said the Bush administration had budgeted for both short-term and long-term military campaigns against Iraq..."

Timothy Noah (MSN/Slate):
"...What about the cost of the war, which the Bush administration insisted couldn't be estimated in advance? Larry Lindsey reportedly lost his job as chairman of the National Economic Council for blabbing to the Wall Street Journal that the war would cost between $100 billion and $200 billion. Mitch Daniels, then White House budget director, scoffed at Lindsey's estimate and said the cost would be more like $50 billion or $60 billion. But now the Washington Post is estimating the cost of the war and its aftermath at … $100 billion..."

Also see: The entry above

1
RE4-05 Iraq reconstruction costs Cheney for Bush

(9/14/2003)

"...But this is not a situation where, you know, it’s only a matter of us writing a check to solve the problem. Iraq sits on top of 10 percent of the world’s oil reserves, very significant reserves, second only to Saudi Arabia..."

Wolfowitz for Bush

"...we are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon..."

Rumsfeld for Bush

"...I don't believe that the United States has the responsibility for reconstruction, in a sense… funds can come from those various sources I mentioned -- frozen assets, oil revenues and a variety of other things, including the Oil for Food, which has a very substantial number of billions of dollars in it..."

Micheal Elliott (Time) via Truthout:
"...Iraq's electricity grid is barely functional, and its oil installations aren't much better. "The oil refineries can't be repaired, in my opinion," said Republican Senator Lindsey Graham after a visit to Iraq last month. "They have to be replaced."...Many oil experts spent last winter publicly debunking the Administration's assumptions on oil, pointing out that 12 years of sanctions had left the industry in a terrible state. "There has been a great deal of wishful thinking about Iraqi oil," said the Council on Foreign Relations/Rice University report, noting that the oil sector was "being held together by 'Band-Aids'" and estimating that the Iraqi industry needed $30 billion to $40 billion to rehabilitate active wells and develop new fields. "Put simply," the report continued, "we do not anticipate a bonanza." According to Department of Energy figures, Iraq is pumping only about 1.65 million bbl. of oil a day now, compared with 2.8 million before the war and 3.5 million before 1990, which makes that revelation something of an understatement..."

The New Republic:
"...Actually, the fact is Iraq will require billions in investment just to return to prewar production levels of 2.5 million barrels per day and even then will bring in only a fraction of the money the United States has budgeted for rebuilding..."

Jonathan Weisman and Juliet Eilperin (Washington Post):
"...President Bush's $20.3 billion request for Iraq's reconstruction...details include...$900 million to import petroleum products such as kerosene and diesel to a country with the world's second-largest oil reserves..."We're not talking sanity here," Dyer [Republican staff director of the House Appropriations Committee] said. "The world's second-largest oil country is importing oil, and a country full of concrete is importing concrete."..."

CNN - before the war 3/12/03:
"...The report from the Council on Foreign Relations...comprised of experts from the government, the military and academia...says the president "should announce a multibillion dollar, multiyear post-conflict reconstruction program and seek formal congressional endorsement."...
Task force co-chairmen Thomas Pickering -- who served in the Clinton administration-- and James Schlesinger -- who served in the Nixon and Ford administrations -- said at a news conference that Americans should not assume Iraq's oil wealth will be available in the early years to help pay for Iraq's reconstruction.
"In the early years, oil revenues will be insufficient," Schlesinger said, noting that Iraq's oil infrastructure is in dire need of refurbishing and that the country's oil revenues are committed to supplying food and essentials..."

As much as we hate to feature this so-called journalist, here goes.
Jeff Gerth (New York Times):
"...The Bush administration's optimistic statements earlier this year that Iraq's oil wealth, not American taxpayers, would cover most of the cost of rebuilding Iraq were at odds with a bleaker assessment of a government task force secretly established last fall to study Iraq's oil industry, according to public records and government officials. The task force, which was based at the Pentagon as part of the planning for the war, produced a book-length report that described the Iraqi oil industry as so badly damaged by a decade of trade embargoes that its production capacity had fallen by more than 25 percent, panel members have said. 
Despite those findings, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz told Congress during the war that "we are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon."
Moreover, Vice President Dick Cheney said in April, on the day Baghdad fell, that Iraq's oil production could hit 3 million barrels a day by the end of the year, even though the task force had determined that Iraq was generating less than 2.4 million barrels a day before the war....
One expert consulted by the government, Amy Myers Jaffe, who heads the energy program at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in Houston, said her group concluded in a report last December that "oil revenues would not be enough and that the expenses of reconstruction would be huge."
In addition, United Nations reports dating back to the late 1990's documented the deterioration that occurred in Iraq's oil system as a result of trade embargoes, which curtailed Iraq's access to technology and equipment...
...Energy Infrastructure Planning Group, whose existence has not been previously disclosed. It drew on the expertise of government specialists including the Central Intelligence Agency and retired senior energy executives. It planned how to secure the oil industry during the war and, afterward, restoring it to its prewar capacity...

The task force concluded that although Iraq's stated production capacity was just over 3 million barrels per day, the system was only producing 2.1 million to 2.4 million barrels, panel members said.
"I think most people would agree that the 2.4 was a little high and the average for 2002 was 2.1," said a Pentagon official on the task force who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The "condition of the Iraqi oil infrastructure was not particularly good," the official said. "That would be evident to anybody who realized the country had been under U.N. sanctions for many years."..."

Jeff Gerth (New York Times):
"...As the Bush administration spends hundreds of millions of dollars to repair the pipes and pumps above ground that carry Iraq's oil, it has not addressed serious problems with Iraq's underground oil reservoirs, which American and Iraqi experts say could severely limit the amount of oil those fields produce.
In northern Iraq, the large but aging Kirkuk field suffers from too much water seeping into its oil deposits, the experts say, and similar problems are evident in the sprawling oil fields in southern Iraq.
Experts familiar with the Iraqi oil industry have said years of poor management damaged the fields, and some warn that the current drive to rapidly return the fields to prewar capacity risks reducing their productivity in the long run. 

"We are losing a lot of oil," said Issam al-Chalabi, Iraq's former oil minister. He said it "is the consensus of all the petroleum engineers" involved in the Iraqi industry that maximizing oil production may be detrimental to the reservoirs. 
A 2000 United Nations report on the Kirkuk field said "the possibility of irreversible damage to the reservoir of this supergiant field is now imminent."...
Wendy Hall, a spokeswoman for Halliburton, the Houston oil services and engineering company managing the Iraqi oil-repair job, said Iraq's present production levels and the administration's future oil goals "cannot be sustained without reservoir maintenance."..."

Also see: Christopher Dickey (Newsweek)

2
RE4-06 Iraq reconstruction costs Cheney for Bush
(Mar 2003)

"...[said that once Hussein was ousted] "a good part of the world, especially our allies, will come around to our way of thinking."..."

Wolfowitz for Bush
(Feb 2003)

"...I would expect that even countries like France will have a strong interest in assisting Iraq in reconstruction..."

Council for a Livable World:
"...The reality:
Most countries, including France, have been reluctant to send troops or help pay for reconstruction.  Great Britain reduced its initial contribution of 45,000 troops to about 11,000.  There is one Polish-led division of about 9,000 troops composed of forces from more than 20 countries.  In most of the world, the U.S. intervention remains very unpopular with the public and the leaders..."

Keith Richburg and Glenn Kessler (Washington Post):
"...International donors Friday promised at least $9 billion in future loans and as much as $4 billion in grants to help with Iraq's postwar reconstruction over the next five years, following a two-day conference marked by continuing differences over the war and how money would be spent.  
With the Bush administration pledging $20 billion, the total from the meeting came to about $33 billion -- well short of the $56 billion that the World Bank and the United Nations have said Iraq would need over the next five years.
The bulk of the money was promised in the form of loans, not the grants that U.S. officials said they preferred, at a time when Iraq is already burdened with $125 billion in foreign debt. [CG emphasis]
While 73 countries attended the session, more than three-quarters of the non-U.S. pledges came from just three sources -- Japan, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The numbers suggest that the United States could end up carrying most of the international burden for rebuilding Iraq..."

1
RE4-07 Iraq reconstruction funding Rumsfeld for Bush

"...Tourism is going to be something important in that country,'' he said, ``as soon as the security situation is resolved..."

San Jose Mercury News:
"...Worried that you, the American taxpayer, will have to pick up the check for Iraq's reconstruction?
Lying awake nights because the river of Iraqi oil that was going to finance the rebuilding won't float a rowboat?
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has a word to ease your mind: Tourism.
 
``Tourism is going to be something important in that country,'' he said, ``as soon as the security situation is resolved . . .''
Mr. Secretary, we hear you. This will be the mother of all vacations:
• The Museums and Ruins Tour: An archaeological excursion featuring looted antiquities museums and recently ruined holy sites. On the bonus shopping expedition, bid for real antiquities in Baghdad's main bazaar.
• The Biblical Rivers Tour: Take a thrill ride on a barge through the mined harbor of Umm Qasr and sightsee on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers (two biblical rivers, one cradle of civilization all for one low price.)
• The WMD Tour: Search for deadly sarin and mustard gas with weapons expert David Kay. (This tour is not recommended for tourists who expect to actually see anything.)
• The Bounty Hunt: Hire an interpreter, rent a Humvee and head off on your own into the wilds of Tikrit in a merry search for the elusive man himself. First one to spot Saddam gets dinner at the White House and $25 million. Includes complimentary deck of ``Most Wanted'' cards for easy identification.
• The Halliburton and Bechtel Reconstruction Tour: Witness truckloads of actual American dollars being dumped in the desert. (Sorry, U.S. citizens only.)
• Grand Finale. Saddam's Groovy Baghdad Love Shacks Tour: From the New York Daily News: ``U.S. soldiers . . . stumbled upon what they believe is one of the tawdry tyrant's secret love lairs. Replete with statues of topless women, a whirlpool tub, beanbag chairs and a king-size bed surrounded with mirrors, the townhouse evoked a groovy, '60s-era playboy pad that would make Austin Powers feel right at home.'' (Over 21 only, must show ID).
• Premium Upgrade Available: Electricity and running water on all tours, prices and hours to be determined.
Book now at Pentagon Expeditions, 1-800-SEE-IRAQ. Ask for John Poindexter."
1
RE4-08 Iraq reconstruction Rumsfeld for Bush

"...We are not in Iraq to engage in nation building...We are there to help Iraqis build their own country..."

Rumsfeld for Bush

"...I don't believe it's our job to reconstruct that country after 30 years of centralized, Stalinist-like economic controls in that country..."

Arthur Silber (Coldfury):
"...Got that? No "nation building." Uh-huh. No sirree. No way. 
Well, then, what the hell is this?
A new curriculum for training an Iraqi army for $164 million. Five hundred experts, at $200,000 each, to investigate crimes against humanity. A witness protection program for $200,000 per Iraqi participant. A computer study for the Iraqi postal service: $54 million.
Such numbers, buried in President Bush's $20.3 billion request for Iraq's reconstruction, have made some congressional Republicans nervous, even furious. Although the GOP leadership has tried to unite publicly around its president, cracks are beginning to show. ...
As more details seep out, he said, anger is sure to rise.
Those details include $100 million to build seven planned communities with a total of 3,258 houses, plus roads, an elementary school, two high schools, a clinic, a place of worship and a market for each; $10 million to finance 100 prison-building experts for six months, at $100,000 an expert; 40 garbage trucks at $50,000 each; $900 million to import petroleum products such as kerosene and diesel to a country with the world's second-largest oil reserves; and $20 million for a four-week business course, at $10,000 per student.
"If those are what the costs are, I'm glad Congress is asking questions," said Brian Reidl, a budget analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation. "If the White House wants to be portrayed as spending tax dollars in Iraq as cost-effectively as they spend [money] anywhere else, they're going to have to explain this."
Already, the administration's request for $400 million to build two 4,000-bed prisons at $50,000 a bed has raised enough questions in Congress to force Provisional Authority Administrator L. Paul Bremer to explain that cement must be imported to make concrete.
"We're not talking sanity here," Dyer said. "The world's second-largest oil country is importing oil, and a country full of concrete is importing concrete."
..."
1
RE4-09 Iraq reconstruction Rumsfeld for Bush

"...the funds the president requested [$87B] are vital to our success in the global war on terror and to our ability to finish the job in Iraq..."

Bush

"...requested the money in September, saying, "We have conducted a thorough assessment of our military and reconstruction needs in Iraq..."

Bush

"...[the key to] rebuilding a democratic and prosperous Iraq is the Iraqi people themselves..."

Rod Nordland and Michael Hirsh (Newsweek):
"...Numerous allegations of overspending, favoritism and corruption have surfaced. Halliburton, a major defense contractor once run by Vice President Dick Cheney, has been accused of gouging prices on imported fuel—charging $1.59 a gallon while the Iraqis “get up to speed,” when the Iraqi national oil company says it can now buy it at no more than 98 cents a gallon. (The difference is about $300 million.) Cronies of Iraqi exile leader Ahmad Chalabi, NEWSWEEK has learned, were recently awarded a large chunk of a major contract for mobile telecommunications networks..."

Misleader.org:
"...As Congress is preparing to vote on the administration's emergency $87 billion request, a new study is challenging the immediate need for the funding.
Defense Secretary Rumsfeld asserted two weeks ago that "the funds the president requested are vital to our success in the global war on terror and to our ability to finish the job in Iraq."1 But that position is being undermined by a Congressional Research Service (CRS) study that has found that Iraq military operations have sufficient funds until May of next year.
The CRS study released yesterday suggests that the recently-passed $368.2 billion 2004 Defense funding bill plus the emergency funding Congress passed at the start of the war provides the Army alone with $37 billion in funding for personnel and operations and maintenance, enough to fund operations through early May.2
President Bush requested the money in September, saying, "We have conducted a thorough assessment of our military and reconstruction needs in Iraq."3 But even prior to the CRS survey's conclusions, Republican aides said that the administration inflated its budget request in part to avoid having to ask for additional funds the following year -- during the election season.4
Bush continues to lobby members personally for passage of the request as it was submitted. Pressure from Congress to scale back or convert portions of the request from a grant to a loan have been met with anger. "I'm not here to debate you," Bush said, in cutting off a Republican senator during a recent meeting to discuss the issue.5...
Even though seven million Iraqis are unemployed1, U.S. sub-contractors are rebuilding the Iraqi infrastructure with cheap migrant labor from South Asia.2 The use of Asian laborers is at odds with President Bush's emphasis on the importance of Iraqis taking on the job themselves.
Bush has said the key to "rebuilding a democratic and prosperous Iraq is the Iraqi people themselves."3 Paul Bremer, the Bush appointee overseeing post-war Iraq, likewise has talked of the need to turn around the country's 60 percent unemployment rate and "to fix a very sick economy."4
However, the head of the Iraqi Jobless Association, Kasem Hadi, is critical of the Bush Administration's lack of progress. "Following four rounds of talks with [Bremer's] representatives, we made no progress regarding the unemployment crisis,"5 Hadi says.
Meanwhile, U.S. Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, one of Bremer's colleagues, has raised questions about the reliability of foreign workers. "You find [them] in out-of-the-way corners taking 15 minute naps," she notes.6
At the same time, officials of the Iraqi Governing Council are concerned that large American contractors, including Halliburton and Bechtel, may be inflating the cost of the reconstruction projects. The Iraqi governors told members of the U.S. Congress that Iraqi companies could be doing the work at 10 percent of the cost.7..."

Rep. Waxman letter to OMB (via Misleader.org):
"...The information I have been receiving is anecdotal. But it is reliable, comes from a variety of different sources, and all points to the same conclusion. 
* Members of the Iraqi Governing Council told my staff that the costs to the American taxpayer of many reconstruct