sway2sway
10-02-2006, 04:49 PM
I was watching the passionate eye last night and it was about the money that the US was entrusted with, which belonged to Iraq and was to be used for reconstruction and redevelopment. This money was mostly from the sale of oil in Iraq during the US occupation, as well as seized bank accounts. One official on there said that it was more important as to the speed in which the money was spent, not on the actual project. From one of the biggest US companies, Custer Battles, it's estimated that for 3 billion of actual projects, 10 billion was spent. One senior person told that he was given 7 million dollars and told he had a week to spend it. There was some other company that was billing for 2000 employees and when they actually dug in to find how many were on the payroll, they could only find 600. The stories just went on and on like that.
In the last week before the handover of control and the money to the new Iraq government there was something like 5 billion spent. On the actual day of the handover, the US had only 3 1/2 million to give Iraq. The money had been squandered and Iraq still was not functioning anywhere near it's previous levels.
They said Iraq used to be the leader in Middle East health care, other countries would look at them and model themselves after them. Now they don't have needles, oxygen masks, medication. They showed one baby that looked premature, they were having to hold oxygen tubing up to it's nose because they had no masks. The baby needed vitamin K (used in the blood clotting process). The hospital had none, so they told the dad to go into the town and try and buy some off the black market. When he returned the baby had died. The doctor said it was entirely preventable.
Iraq was not a third world country before all this started. One government guy said (basically) that this is to be expected, redevelopment is not an easy road, we learn from it each time and each case is different (blah fucking blah)
AND that it should just be considered water under the bridge. Are you for real? Do you think the US would call it water under the bridge if some country wasted close to 20 billion dollars and left the people without adequate food, shelter, healthcare and infrastructure.
It's shameful.
http://www.cbc.ca/passionateeyesunday/feature_011006.html
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?menu=c10400&no=280803&rel_no=1
In the last week before the handover of control and the money to the new Iraq government there was something like 5 billion spent. On the actual day of the handover, the US had only 3 1/2 million to give Iraq. The money had been squandered and Iraq still was not functioning anywhere near it's previous levels.
They said Iraq used to be the leader in Middle East health care, other countries would look at them and model themselves after them. Now they don't have needles, oxygen masks, medication. They showed one baby that looked premature, they were having to hold oxygen tubing up to it's nose because they had no masks. The baby needed vitamin K (used in the blood clotting process). The hospital had none, so they told the dad to go into the town and try and buy some off the black market. When he returned the baby had died. The doctor said it was entirely preventable.
Iraq was not a third world country before all this started. One government guy said (basically) that this is to be expected, redevelopment is not an easy road, we learn from it each time and each case is different (blah fucking blah)
AND that it should just be considered water under the bridge. Are you for real? Do you think the US would call it water under the bridge if some country wasted close to 20 billion dollars and left the people without adequate food, shelter, healthcare and infrastructure.
It's shameful.
http://www.cbc.ca/passionateeyesunday/feature_011006.html
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?menu=c10400&no=280803&rel_no=1