[PB2K]

I remember that right after the 2nd gulf war Bush said that the USA would invest about 25 Billion or something on the rebuilding of Iraq. This money has already been spent duoble and an ending of all hostilities seems really far away.

Lets learn from this. next time when the USA is spending money, let's just divide that 25 Billion thru the amount of Iraqies and give cash handouts to the Iraqi people. Iraqi citizens would all receive a large amount of money that they are free to spend. instead of infrastructure they could create a state of the art informationsuperhighway, which could lead to demand for cocacola and fastfood, creating lots of opportunities for American corporations. No one would get hurt and Bin Laden would have a tough time getting Iraqi's recruited for his holy war on western decadence.

[mojo2]

Originally Posted by PB2K

I remember that right after the 2nd gulf war Bush said that the USA would invest about 25 Billion or something on the rebuilding of Iraq. This money has already been spent duoble and an ending of all hostilities seems really far away.

Lets learn from this. next time when the USA is spending money, let's just divide that 25 Billion thru the amount of Iraqies and give cash handouts to the Iraqi people. Iraqi citizens would all receive a large amount of money that they are free to spend. instead of infrastructure they could create a state of the art informationsuperhighway, which could lead to demand for cocacola and fastfood, creating lots of opportunities for American corporations. No one would get hurt and Bin Laden would have a tough time getting Iraqi's recruited for his holy war on western decadence.

This idea slightly offends my sense of integrity and there is no promise that those you were buying would STAY BOUGHT.

It would be a kind of appeasement or blackmail payment and who would ever settle for a one time payoff? And why wouldn't they begin terrorizing to get another payday? And then jihadists in other nations and subsequent generations would do the same and then we wouldn't have enough money to support our own military because we were paying off so many of the would-be terrorists and THEN the terrorists would take over once we'd been bled dry.

It's not a workable idea.

But I admit I HAVE pondered the idea, too.

[Nicko]

See when the US says it spends billions on Iraq (or anywhere else) its a little misleading.

First of all, all money donated by US will only got to US contracting companies. Right off the top, the contractors get about 30% -- which will stay in the US for operating costs. From what is left a further 30% will go toward expat salaries. Allow another 20% or so for cost over runs and delays and you can see how hard it is to get anything done. Then ofcourse there is the sustainability issue. Build a bridge, fix a road, install sewage system... you also need to build a support system so that the locals can maintain it when it breaks down. This also implies that you need access to replacement parts. Further complications arrise.

Then there is the issue of ever-present corruption, inflation, currency differences, and in Iraq's case, constant violence and social instability.

I have read countless articles about how 10s of millions are spend on say fixing an oil pipeline and it works for a few days until a well placed bomb blows it all up.

To be fair, the US is pretty tight in general with how they give their money out. But make no mistake, the US companies in Iraq right now are making millions (and in some cases billions) whether or not they are actually accomplishing anything.

[jckalen]

Hezbollah has been handing out cash to the Lebanese as they return home. I'm not sure we'd want to be seen as "buying off" the locals.

[mojo2]

Originally Posted by Nicko

See when the US says it spends billions on Iraq (or anywhere else) its a little misleading.

First of all, all money donated by US will only got to US contracting companies. Right off the top, the contractors get about 30% -- which will stay in the US for operating costs. From what is left a further 30% will go toward expat salaries. Allow another 20% or so for cost over runs and delays and you can see how hard it is to get anything done. Then ofcourse there is the sustainability issue. Build a bridge, fix a road, install sewage system... you also need to build a support system so that the locals can maintain it when it breaks down. This also implies that you need access to replacement parts. Further complications arrise.

Then there is the issue of ever-present corruption, inflation, currency differences, and in Iraq's case, constant violence and social instability.

I have read countless articles about how 10s of millions are spend on say fixing an oil pipeline and it works for a few days until a well placed bomb blows it all up.

To be fair, the US is pretty tight in general with how they give their money out. But make no mistake, the US companies in Iraq right now are making millions (and in some cases billions) whether or not they are actually accomplishing anything.

For the sake of fairness and objectivity wouldn't you say that security costs eat up a lot of the budgets on every project over there? Although there have been some war profiteers who've already been investigated for accepting contracts to perform work they were ill-prepared for and who did NOTHING in exchange for millions of $$.

Anyone have links showing a graph or pie chart or something showing the breakdown of where the average dollar goes in an Iraqi rebuilding project??

(Hey, maybe Macs can't read pie charts? )