Bush to Shift ($3.5 B)Iraq Funds (from water/electric) to Boost Security

[papau]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&ncid=578&e=1&u=/nm/20040913/ts_nm/iraq_usa_funding_dc

Bush to Shift ($3.5 B)Iraq Funds (from water/electric) to Boost Security

HOLLAND, Mich. (Reuters) - Faced with mounting violence in Iraq, the Bush administration plans on Tuesday to propose shifting $3.46 billion from Iraqi water, power and other reconstruction projects to improve security, boost oil output and prepare for elections scheduled for January.

Congressional sources briefed on the plan, which must still be approved by Congress, said it includes funding to cover the cost of forgiving 95 percent of Iraq's prewar debts to the United States. Those debts total about $4 billion. <snip>

[MaineDem]

1. The Security forces won't have water

But they'll have guns, by God!

[saigon68]

17. Lots more Black Water mercenaries

At $1,500.00 a day. Oh the Land of Opportunity-- make thousands a day by Killing your fellow man

http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,246775,00.jpg

[moondust]

18. Exactly.

They're out of troops to call on so they'll drop a few billion $$ on mercenaries. Save The Fool at any cost!

[daleo]

2. Generous - he attacks and destroys a country, the forgives their debt

Never have I witnessed such a spirit of altruism.

[cthrumatrix]

3. very compassionate George...wonder why people of Iraq are pissed

[MasonJar]

4. This is pathetic; those innocent victims of our vicious "Shock and

Awe" deserve to have safe water and electricity. We should pay for the security that we destroyed by our undeniable assault on a country that even Colin now says has no WMD and no connection to 9/11.

[ixion]

5. yeah, they've been performing SO WELL at getting water and power on

what's a little less water in the desert? :eyes: :crazy:

The deceitfulness and incompetence of this maladmin never ceases to amaze me. :grr:

[izzie]

6. I think I have lost it on Iraq. What are we doing in that country?

We are like a 2 year old with a hammer. Have we left any country in one piece since WW2?

[aquart]

8. Excuse me? So George is like every other President?

No different? You can't make any distinction?

You're here, why?

[The_Casual_Observer]

7. The shift is probably due to the fact that they can't do the projects

due to lack of security.

Chicken or the egg?

Chasing your tail?.....

Don't have job till you have tools, don't have tools till you have job.....

[GHOSTDANCER]

9. Not haveing happy citizens, increased amount of insurgents kind of thing

Thats a crap load of money to be taking from people who just barely got use to using electricity again. You try going with out em.

[uhhuh]

10. I See That No One HereGets It

The chimp is trying to turn Iraq into a U.S. style Democracy after all.

He is taking money from desparately needed programs that support their destroyed infrastruture and giving it to defense contractors and oil executives.

THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT HE IS DOING HERE!!!

See? The chimp has told the truth for once. Let's see which country will be "freed" first.

[TEXASYANKEE]

11. Plans for peace?

This is just more evidence at how little these pathetic crooks planned for the peace in post-war Iraq. Jobs, electricity, sewage removal ... all should have been task #1 after we secured the country. 18 months later and it now might be too late to put this money to good effect.

[louis-t]

12. So let me get this straight..

Iraq owes us $4 billion from (I would guess) weapons sales in the '80's. Saddam uses those weapons to attack Iran, the Kurds, then Kuwait. We then destroy the weapons (which were never paid for) and forgive the debt! This makes Reagan, Bush Sr. look even more stupid. What was accomplished, you ask? :shrug:

[w4rma]

13. miserable failure (nt)

[shrike]

14. tap water is undrinkable already

Got that straight from the horse's mouth -- someone who lived there for three months. Tap water is brown. Wish I could remember the link, but an article posted on DU a week or so ago revealed that raw sewage has been pouring into the water supply since last year, the end of "major combat operations."

[struggle4progress]

15. Slow progress with Iraq reconstruction (NBC / 3 September)

By Aram Roston
Producer
NBC News
Updated: 11:30 a.m. ET Sept. 3, 2004

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A torrent of raw sewage from east Baghdad roars from a giant pipe into a tributary of the Tigris River, not far from a U.S. military base named "Camp Cuervo." With a rancid stench that saturates the area, the stuff has been pouring into Iraq's main waterway since the U.S. military action to oust Saddam Hussein last year.

"People are now basically drinking raw sewage anywhere downstream from Baghdad, which is much of the population," said William Fellows, a senior program officer for UNICEF who also works with the United Nations Development Program.

The public health dangers range from cholera to minor stomach problems, said Fellows, who is based in Amman, Jordan. “There is more diarrhea, there is more skin disease, there is more eye disease, there are more health problems.” <snip>

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5898089


Source: Integrated Regional Information Networks
Date: 7 Sept 2004
Focus on malnutrition

<snip> Wathiq Ibrahim, one of the doctors at the Central Teaching Hospital for Paediatrics in the capital, told IRIN that cases of child malnutrition, before the US-led war to topple Saddam Hussein, were attributable to food deficiency, as 60 percent of the population was dependent on food rations following UN sanctions on the country as a result of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in the early 1990s.

However, 80 percent of current cases are due to infections caused by dirty water resulting in diseases such as cholera.

"The street in front of my home is absolutely destroyed by US tanks and you can see the dirty water coming out everywhere. I cannot control my son in going out from home all the time and today I'm here for five nights waiting for him to recover from malnutrition and cholera," Madiha Abbas, who was waiting for his sick five-year-old son at the local hospital in the Shoola suburb, told IRIN. <snip>

http://wwww.reliefweb.int/w/rwb.nsf/0/e21327b37336ff80c1256f080046ccf9?OpenDocument

[saigon68]

16. They must have fun

When they sit on a toilet---NOT </sarcasm>