An Unhappy Anniversary
This weekend marks the two-year anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Two years ago, the White House had waged an aggressive campaign for invading Iraq. Since that time, however, all of the rationales posed by the White House as justification for the war have been thoroughly debunked. There were no weapons of mass destruction. Saddam had no collaborative ties to al Qaeda. Even more egregious, however, is while there was a comprehensive plan for getting into the war, the White House never implemented a real plan for winning the peace and establishing a secure Iraq. Today, more than 1,500 American soldiers have been killed. There still is no exit strategy for U.S. troops. There is no standard for determining when Iraqi security forces will be ready to take over responsibility for their own security. Corruption is rampant, reconstruction is woefully behind, and the American public is becoming increasingly disillusioned with this "war of choice." (According to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, 53 percent of Americans said the war was not worth fighting and 70 percent said the number of U.S. casualties is an unacceptable price.)
COST OF WAR, THEN AND NOW: In the days after the invasion two years ago, the Bush administration famously predicted the war would pay for itself. Andrew Natsios, head of USAID, remember, told Congress: "In terms of the American taxpayers contribution, [$1.7 billion] is it for the US. The rest of the rebuilding of Iraq will be done by other countries and Iraqi oil revenues." Deputy Secretary of State Paul Wolfowitz backed him up, saying Iraq was a country "that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon." Today, the U.S. is on track to spend more than $300 billion to maintain our troops.
INSURGENCY, THEN AND NOW: Two years ago, the White House claimed U.S. troops would be greeted as liberators by an overjoyed Iraqi people. In July 2003, there were an estimated 5,000 insurgents fighting against U.S. troops. Today, that estimate is closer to 18,000. And while a year ago, there were an average of 14 attacks against U.S. troops per day, now there are more than 70.
IRAQI FORCES, THEN AND NOW: The Pentagon has long been saying Iraqi security forces are on the cusp of taking over responsibility for their own security. It's a lot of politics with very little truth. A new report by the Government Accountability Office found "U.S. government agencies do not report reliable data on the extent to which Iraqi security forces are trained and equipped." For example, the number of Iraqi security forces is consistently overstated. Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said, for example, that there are 145,000 Iraqi troops trained; Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, puts that number at closer to 4,000.
RECONSTRUCTION, THEN AND NOW: Two years ago, the White House promised to restore prosperity to Iraq. However, instead of sending seasoned experts to lead the massive reconstruction, the administration instead sent very young, inexperienced ideologues, chosen for their loyalty rather than their training. Money was bottlenecked; contracts were botched. And that lack of attention had serious consequences. AP reports, "Two years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the tattered and dangerous country has become one of the world's poorest, ranking at the level of Haiti and Senegal." Today, Iraq produces about 700,000 barrels of oil a day less than before the invasion. Electrical capacity has gone backwards. Last June, Iraq was generating less electricity than before the war, leaving most Iraqis with only 12 to 14 hours of power a day. Today, that's fallen even further. According to State Department figures, "Iraq now averages just 8.5 hours of electricity a day, with some provinces getting as little as five hours."
USING CONTRACTORS, THEN AND NOW: The administration put the burden of reconstruction on the shoulders of private, no-bid, outside contractors, many of whom saw it as an easy way to make a quick buck. Today, for example, Pentagon auditors have discovered Halliburton has overcharged American taxpayers by $108 million. Just this week, in the first criminal case of contracting fraud in Iraq, a former manager for Halliburton subsidiary KBR was indicted on 10 counts by a federal jury for cheating the government out of nearly $4 million in Kuwait. A separate audit also found Halliburton can't account for $1.8 billion in a separate contract to repair oil fields in Iraq. It's not just U.S. money missing: the Coalition Provisional Authority also can't account for almost $9 billion in spent Iraqi funds.
