Pentagon, State Department feuding in Iraq.

[babylonsister]

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/05/14/pentagon-state-department-fueding-in-iraq/

Pentagon, State Department feuding in Iraq.

“Paul Brinkley, a deputy undersecretary of defense, has been called a Stalinist by U.S. diplomats in Iraq. One has accused him of helping insurgents build better bombs. The State Department has even taken the unusual step of enlisting the CIA to dispute the validity of Brinkley’s work. His transgression? To begin reopening dozens of government-owned factories in Iraq.”

Brinkley and his colleagues at the Pentagon believe that rehabilitating shuttered, state-run enterprises could reduce violence by employing tens of thousands of Iraqis. Officials at State counter that the initiative is antithetical to free-market reforms the United States should promote in Iraq.

The bureaucratic knife fight over the best way to revive Iraq’s moribund economy illustrates how the two principal players in the reconstruction of Iraq — the departments of Defense and State — remain at odds over basic economic and political measures. The bickering has hamstrung initiatives to promote stability four years after Saddam Hussein’s fall.

[shain from kane]

1. Is welfare reform needed in Iraq? We threw them off the rolls here, so we could put

them on the rolls over there.

[Kagemusha]

2. God forbid those poor people get any help from a first world country.

It's apparently an insult to everything liberals stand for.