about the Coalition Formerly Known as the Coalition of the Willing…
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April 14, 2005
Billmon: 04/13 bis
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Here’s the fun part: when American forces are largely gone, to whom shall the Iraqis turn for assistance–when hiring engineers, for example–to start the rebuilding of their shattered land? If Americans are to monopolize this process–teaching a thing or two along the way to the “coalition of the unwilling”–then they’ll have to figure out a way to stop being blown up by Iraqis (but the French and Germans can always apply….).
Posted by: alabama | Apr 14 2005 7:38 utc | 3
Reality kicks in for Iraqis who collaborate with U.S. forces: America won’t take Iraqi refugees who face mortal danger at home
Because it’s a democracy now, see? Why would anyone want to flee from it?
Posted by: Nugget | Apr 14 2005 8:33 utc | 4
What is really happening in Al Quaim?
The battle in and around Al-Qaim rages for the sixth day
Another Grozny?
Alabama- as Riverbend made clear in earlier diaries, there were plenty of Iraqi engineers and other professionals who were capable and who wanted to contribute to the reconstruction of their country…but the US would not hire them because they didn’t trust them…and, no doubt, also because they were not part of the war profiteers that are on the other side of the administration’s revolving door.
It wasn’t the Americans (or the British) who built the roads and bridges and palaces when Saddam was in power.
And now, when women are too often afraid to leave their houses for fear of kidnapping or punishment by various factions, the US has made it harder and harder for women to be a part of the workforce.
Posted by: fauxreal | Apr 14 2005 13:19 utc | 6
@ Fauxreal
While the arcane tendering process was made as inaccessible as possible to the bulk of Iraq’s population (aside from the scandal od ‘no bid contracts’ the other tenders went through a bureaucratic funnel controlled from the U.S. via Washington and the Green Zone and manned at some points by such altruistic souls as members of the Chalabi clan, a fact that saw some very hastily thrown together around April / May 2003 companies in the U.S. somehow managing to land very lucrative contracts indeed. In addition the original tender documents were published in English only and then when Arabic versions were printed later they were only available online in a country plagued by massive power and telephone line outages that often saw no telephone access for weeks at a time), even in those instances where Iraqis (not related to or politically affiliated with the exiles who returned under the shelter of U.S. tanks and warplanes), succeeded in cutting through the layers of difficulty (and corruption) and submitted sensible, honorable, realistically and competitively costed and meticulously timetabled to completion tenders they were invariably passed over in favor of bids from U.S. companies that cost millions of dollars more. Thus ‘small’ but realistic bids for, for example, repairs to damaged bridges costed at around $300,000 were ignored while U.S. firms submitted tenders for millions for the same work and won the contract. Such were not isolated occurrences but the norm. And as you rightly point Iraq had and has amply qualified engineers, architects and other professionals. It was a gold rush and, as is always the case in such circumstances, the rights, the needs and the capabilities of the ‘natives’ were swept aside in the stampede. To add insult to injury when the ‘economic trickledown’ mechanism ever did come into play the ‘work’ was on rare occasions sub-contracted out to Iraqi firms or workers who received what amounted to peanuts in terms of the tender prices while the American contractors pocketed the massive difference.
It goes without saying that this state of affairs is common knowledge throughout Iraq.
Posted by: Nugget | Apr 14 2005 14:14 utc | 7
Money for Iraq held up over Maryland oyster shuckers
WASHINGTON — A shortage of migrant oyster shuckers and crab pickers is threatening to delay Senate action on an $80.6 billion emergency bill to pay for U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Crab season opened April 1 in Maryland, but several businesses in the Chesapeake Bay seafood industry are without pickers and shuckers because the ceiling of 66,000 visas for foreign workers was reached Jan. 3. Maryland Sen. Barbara Mikulski is trying to amend the Iraq bill to do something about it…..
Posted by: Nugget | Apr 14 2005 18:15 utc | 8
The Gvmt. of Iraq meets only in the Green Zone under heavy guard. (Includin’ travel to and fro..) Maybe even in Saddam’s palace! (Haven’t looked into those satellite maps.) Electoral lists being secret was too cool – whoo.. just for the protection of those hardy democrats.
There is now a tiny area, which is controlled – Green Zone – inhabited by the Americans / Brits and puppet Gvmt; areas that are conquered, that is devastated (or about to be so, Fallujah, Mosul, other), basically Wastelands covered in rotting bodies, destroyed infrastructure, and the very occasional live person weeping or silent and still. Millions of Iraqis have been killed. (Counting Sanctions.)
The Green Zone is minuscule. Expanding it and creating safe corridors to the oil fields will not be possible.
The Israeli model is an illusion.
Posted by: Blackie | Apr 14 2005 19:05 utc | 9
Here’s a story I haven’t seen anywhere in the U.S. media, but I found it in the British press: Britain to pull 5,500 troops out of Iraq.
laura
i dont believe one word of the article including all the ‘the’s & ‘and’s
some little offering from the creeps that call themselves press officers or whatever modern appelation they give it
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Apr 14 2005 22:13 utc | 11
Not to mention the Missing $9Bn US which the US press keeps talking about as if it were US taxpayer money, when in fact it was Iraqi money…
smash and grab raid — smash the place and loot it. if a couple of Black teenagers did it to a Korean grocery on a hot summer night it would be considered plenty criminal. when a gang of rich whiteboys does it to a whole country it’s considered “global [hahahahahahaha] policing“. yes I have heard of police forces like that. in ultra-corrupt third world countries and tinpot dictatorships. ahem… yes, well. nuff said.
R´giap,
why do you not believe it? Unreliable paper in general or just that it fits to snuggly with the brittish election coming up?
Just wondering.
Posted by: A swedish kind of death | Apr 14 2005 23:35 utc | 13
I wouldn’t be surprised if it is just election politics, but it seems a bit odd to me that there isn’t more coverage of it. If Blair is even pretending he wants to pull out, surely that has some significance, I would think.
Just my two cents 🙂
fauxreal:
Very much shades of Japanese internment camps during WW2; in Canada, at least. Lots of highly skilled Canadians were shoved aside because apparently they stopped being Canadian when the war started and were Suddenly Japanese.
Same problem with the US (theoretical) Intelligence during this war, no?