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Reconstruction Woes Continue In Iraq

By Judd Legum on Oct 30, 2005 at 7:11 pm

Staurt Bowen, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, delivered his quarterly report to Congress today. It’s 114 pages and it’s not pretty. Some of the lowlights –

Planning for post-hostilities reconstruction was woefully inadequate (pg. 80):

In Iraq, however, systematic planning for the post-hostilities period was insufficient in both scope and implementation. With respect to human capital, no comprehensive policy or regulatory guidelines were in place for staffing the management of post-war Iraq.

Security problems continue to hamper reconstruction efforts (pg. 1):

Nearly two years ago, the U.S. developed a reconstruction plan that specified a target number of projects that would be executed using the Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund. That target number was revised downward during last year’s reprogrammings. Now it appears that the actual number of projects completed will be even lower. The reasons for the shortfall are many, security being the most salient.

Contractor deaths are on the rise (pg. 16):

The number of insurance death-claims filed this quarter by contractors from all countries rose by 82 (70%) from the previous quarter, bringing the total number of non-Iraqi contractor deaths to 412 for the period March 11, 2003 through September 30, 2005.

Political milestones are great, but reconstruction is what really makes an impact in the day-to-day lives of Iraqis. That’s why successful reconstruction is essential to creating longterm stability.

Politics

Powerline: Still In Denial About Valerie Wilson’s Status

By Judd Legum on Oct 30, 2005 at 4:38 pm

In an earlier post we criticized Powerline’s John Hinderacker for arguing that Fitzgerald “appears to have concluded that Plame was not, in fact, a covert agent.” We noted that the indictment concludes “her employment status was classified,” which suggests she was a covert agent.

Hinderacker maturely responds to the “ignoramus” website who dared criticize his analysis. His point is that the definition of a “covert agent” under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act requires the employee’s identity to be classified and travel outside of the United States within the last five years.

Hinderacker doesn’t provide any information that suggests Ms. Wilson didn’t travel overseas in the five years prior to her outing. There’s probably a good reason. On October 8, 2003 the Washington Post reported her neighbors, prior to her outing, “knew Valerie Wilson as a consultant who traveled frequently overseas.” Read more

Media

Hume to Juan Williams: Someone Needs To Hose You Down

By Judd Legum on Oct 30, 2005 at 10:28 am

williams

From Fox News Sunday this morning:

JUAN WILLIAMS: You can try to minimize it, but the fact that you have Scooter Libby, so involved in justifying going to war, and in the posture of trying to smear a critic of that justification. I think is pretty revealing and pretty damaging to the Bush White House. I think they’re going to have to rebuild a sense of trust with the American People. And that’s why when Brit asked this question, why did he have to lie, he felt the need to lie if he did lie, but by all indications he’s going to say I didn’t remember it quite the way this person remembered and all the like. That’s not very strong in my book, and I think Fitzgerald did a terrific job on Friday. But the reason he felt the need was to make it clear that he was not involved in what really was a conspiracy to defame Joe Wilson.

BRIT HUME: Juan, somebody needs to hose you down.

Good to know that Hume has so many thoughtful arguments at his disposal to defend the Bush White House.

UPDATE: Crooks and Liars has the video.

Politics

Indictment Dissected: A Campaign Against Wilson

By Faiz Shakir on Oct 30, 2005 at 12:30 am

[This is the third part of a Think Progress series breaking down the significance of the Libby indictment.]

At various points in the indictments, evidence is put forth to suggest that a broad, collaborative effort was undertaken in the Bush administration to smear Joe Wilson.

1. Libby “participated in discussions in the Office of the Vice President concerning how to respond” to Walter Pincus’s story in the Washington Post suggesting that the Bush administration was aware of bad intelligence on uranium prior to the war (see #8).

2. Libby had “a conversation” with Official A [Rove] in which the identity of Wilson’s wife was discussed (see #21).

3. Libby had discussions aboard Air Force 2 with officials in the Vice President’s office regarding how best to respond “to certain pending media inquiries, including questions from Time reporter Matthew Cooper,” about Wilson’s claims (see #22).

4. After Libby asked the Under Secretary of State to investigate Wilson’s trip, the State Department official told Libby that his wife worked at the CIA (see #4 and 6).

5. Libby had lunch with White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer in which they discussed the fact that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA (see #16) [comment: Ari seems to have flipped]

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