Sadly, the Bush administration’s goals to fix Iraq’s war-beleaguered infrastructure will never be reached, according to a new government audit.
That’s not because of a lack of will, or money, but because the U.S. government severely underestimated the power and reach of the Iraqi insurgency.
Yes, that same insurgency that Vice President Dick Cheney promised last year was in its last throes.
The audit, released by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, says 60 percent of the 136 planned water and sanitation projects had to be shelved because extra spending on security sapped resources. Of the 425 planned electric projects, only 300 will be finished.
The U.S. originally budgeted 9 percent of its reconstruction costs for security. Because of the insurgency that’s wracked the country since the American invasion, it’s actually cost more than twice that, and little seems secure now.
Terrorists continue to wreak havoc across the country, detonating roadside bombs that maim and kill U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians while sabotaging the nation’s oil pipelines and public utility lines.
It’s impossible to win over the hearts and minds of Iraqis when they can’t even count on having water or electricity in their homes.
Not only have explosions disrupted pipelines, but the contractors and workers needed to build up the country’s infrastructure have fled, terrified they’ll lose their lives.
Who can blame them?
“… Nobody predicted anything of this magnitude in terms of resistance,” Wayne White, former head of the State Department’s Iraq intelligence team, told The Washington Post. “And in part, the magnitude of the resistance was spurred by our failures in reconstruction.”
Others in government suggest that our own planning failures are to blame, saying the U.S. should have concentrated first on bringing short-term relief and only later, if at all, on huge construction projects.
If Iraq is going to be our ally in the Middle East, we need to leave that country in better shape than when our troops arrived in March 2003.
The U.S. owes the Iraqi people nothing less.
But before progress can ever be made on rebuilding the country’s infrastructure, Iraqis first must be trained so they can defend their country from insurgents.
