The President and his dwindling pack of followers have touted the recent surge as curbing sectarian violence in Baghdad. When you don't count certain statistics like car bombings, it does indeed lower the death count. What Bush has remained consistent on is highlighting the rebuilding process that the military has spent billions on so Iraqis like us and all that jazz. Why anyone believed on him on this, I have no freaking idea. Now we have proof that he lied about the projects, just like he lies about everything else.
From The New York Times:
In a troubling sign for the American-financed rebuilding program in Iraq, inspectors for a federal oversight agency have found that in a sampling of eight projects that the United States had declared successes, seven were no longer operating as designed because of plumbing and electrical failures, lack of proper maintenance, apparent looting and expensive equipment that lay idle.
The United States has previously admitted, sometimes under pressure from federal inspectors, that some of its reconstruction projects have been abandoned, delayed or poorly constructed. But this is the first time inspectors have found that projects officially declared a success — in some cases, as little as six months before the latest inspections — were no longer working properly.
Perhaps these seven dilapidated projects were a statistical fluke, if the Bush Administration responds to this story that will probably be their excuse. When you are as delusional as the neo-cons about the situation in Iraq (among other things), you will believe anything to keep the grand lie going. Or maybe these seven projects are just little things like playgrounds and walls that separate the Shias from the Sunnis? Guess again, that wall is going up strong. Here is one of the seven:
At the maternity hospital, a rehabilitation project in the northern city of Erbil, an expensive incinerator for medical waste was padlocked — Iraqis at the hospital could not find the key when inspectors asked to see the equipment — and partly as a result, medical waste including syringes, used bandages and empty drug vials were clogging the sewage system and probably contaminating the water system.
Yeah, that's no big deal. The funny thing is, it isn't because of sabotage that these projects aren't up and running. The problem is poor construction, poor maintenance and non-existent training for all of the new and expensive equipment. Unfortunately the military leaders overseeing all of this say they don't want to micromanage in Iraqi's affairs. So ultimately, millions of our taxpayer dollars are lost, all for nothing, including any increase in the quality of life for the people we 'liberated.'
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