Hope as a Budget Item – Moon of Alabama

September 16, 2004

Hope as a Budget Item

Last year the US Congress answered the administration´s “urgent request” by agreeing on $18.4 billion non military spending for Iraq. By now $1.14 billion have been urgently spend. Yesterday the administration asked Congress to move $3.46 billon of the US pledged money to security – that at least is what you will hear in the news.

In a first step the Senate Foreign Relation committee yesterday moved $150 million dollar from the Iraq pot to “help victims of violence and famine in the Darfur region of Sudan”. This may pay for the American military personnel working with African Union monitors in the Sudanese region of Darfur to help bring the attacking militias under control and restore security to the area – i.e. for illegal interference in a foreign sovereign country by military means.

The actual State Department request has some details not reflect in the news.
– Water and sewer treatment projects will be reduced by 45%.
– Electricity project funding will be reduced by 20%.
– Refined Oil Purchases, i.e. subsidy for private Iraqi gas and petroleum needs, will be reduced by $450 million.

This will make for some happy Iraqis this winter – sitting in the dark, no petroleum in their heaters and sipping cold tea made with contaminated water.

But there is hope. The money will now be spent more wisely.

$1.8 billion will go to security – 45,000 additional police, 16,000 new border control and 20,000 additional Iraqi national guards. The capacity for the 8 week training course for new policemen is planed to double to 5,300 academy slots. Sometime from now 31,800 per year may be able to receive training.

Oil capacity enhancement – urgently needed to turn down the insurgency – will get additional $450 million. Questions about these new contracts shall be directed to the Vice President´s office.

Unspecified economic development goes for $380 million, accelerated employment gets $286 million and democracy and governance can be bought for $180 million.

A nice chunk of $360 million will go to debt reduction. Sounds fuzzy? ABC news explains:

Some $360 million will be set aside to cover the “budget cost” of forgiving 95 percent of Iraqi debt to the United States incurred during the Iraq War.

Citibank would be proud of this scheme.

During the Congress hearing Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iraq, Ronald Schlicher, claimed the DoD´s prize for the best new weapon technology.

“In short, one of our main weapons against the insurgents is the hope and the creation of more hope,” he said. “When Iraqis have hope for the future and real opportunities, they will reject those who advocate violence.”

Hope is now an official budget item.

Posted by b on September 16, 2004 at 14:48 UTC | Permalink

Comments

Bernhard: $1.8 billion will go to security – 45,000 additional police, 16,000 new border control and 20,000 additional Iraqi national guards. The capacity for the 8 week training course for new policemen is planed to double to 5,300 academy slots. Sometime from now 31,800 per year may be able to receive training.
Doesn’t this mean that $1.8 billion will go to training insurgents (excuse me, anti-Iraqi forces)? Do we have any idea how many of the new Iraqi police and National Guard are in fact insurgents? This is just one more example of the Bush Administration’s utter cluelessness about the reality on the ground in Iraq.

Posted by: Anonymous | Sep 16 2004 18:04 utc | 1

*** OFF TOPIC ***
…
@ bernhard: if you find it outrageous of me to post this here, you may as well move it to another thread 🙂
moved it to OffTopic Thread
b

Posted by: name | Sep 16 2004 18:37 utc | 2

Well the US has ‘privatised’ (stolen) the Iraq economy, and much good that does anyone as no one will invest, and without security and at least some infrastructure, nothing will come of that. I read that in many parts of Iraq today there is no electricity at all – or only maybe 2 hours out of 24 every two days. Big surprise.
I have read that between 1 and 2 (closer to 2) of the original 18 billion is already missing, completely unaccounted for. So knock that off also.
Nobody seriously imagined that the US allocated money to be spent on Iraqis, come on.

Posted by: Blackie | Sep 16 2004 19:29 utc | 3

Listen, this only proves that guys like Douglas Feith are freakin loosers in the regime change business.
Blinded by ideology, Bremer gave tax-cuts to people who wanted jobs & security. Well, let me only say that people who have a job, are at work for like 8-10 hours. They DO NOT have much time for past time pleasures in the form of insurgency, holy wars & stuff.
In fact, jobs DO reinforce security, because everyone, who is not at work in a legal business, probably has something suspicious going on. But in a 70% unemployment zone you just can not separate the good seed from the bad seed.
It would be so easy to close the border for some foreign goods, employ Iraqis at the Customs and make them all consume what they can produce. A little protectionism. But no, ‘we must have a free market! consumer choice triumphs!’
I think we could ourselves come up with a better government takeover scheme then the neocons. One of Machiavellian quality, which does include real elections.
As you probably know, the guy with more money usually beats the one with none at all. People like pretty campaign billboards. They prefer optimistic TV spots to doom-preaching angry heads.
As a draft please consider Italian elections 1947-1948 and the OSS ‘sponsorship’ of right-wing christian parties against the socialists.
Why were there no elections in Iraq in the summer of 2003? It would be so easy to outspend the al-Sadrs, al-Sistanis. It would be so easy to fund the little couch-parties, socialist, liberals, whatever, just to split the field between everyone who thinks he is the better politician.
There even is a organisation which is in the business of ‘sponsoring democracy abroad’. It is called the National Endowment for Democracy (often accused to be a CIA front). And if you in a bizzarre way fund parties with OPPOSING political platforms, then you can not be accussed of lobbying a partisan side. Dig it? You are only supporting an emerging democratic environment. More parties means voters can choose, doesn’t it?
Remember AIPAC? They have a rule. They fund the opponents of politicians who said something bad about Israel. This works much better then directly funding strong Israel supporters. Why not meet the Al-Sadrs at the ballot box, where you have the ‘dollar advantage’?
Why so little faith in a democratic campaign process?

Posted by: MarcinGomulka | Sep 16 2004 22:08 utc | 4

Marcin: The Italian scenario can’t work in Iraq because Iraqis are occupied and oppressed on a daily basis, and the US isn’t allied to the Iraqi mafia – insurgents are allied, or rather, they merged with what could be considered as the local mafia, as is common in such a situation.
Blackie: 1 or 2 months ago, 8 billions were missing from the total bill on Iraq. That is really a lot of money, and they can’t blame Chalabi for all of it.

Posted by: Clueless Joe | Sep 16 2004 22:55 utc | 5

Why so little faith in a democratic campaign process?
🙂
At what point will Americans see themselves as others see them?

Posted by: DM | Sep 17 2004 0:01 utc | 6

Doesn’t this mean that $1.8 billion will go to training insurgents (excuse me, anti-Iraqi forces)?
Heh, indeed… aspiring mujahedin can get two months basic training from the Americans, then advance to the Fallujah Finishing School to complete their jihadi education!

Posted by: Harrow | Sep 17 2004 3:22 utc | 7

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