Iraqi Economic Progress Less than President Said

The president went in front of the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington on Wednesday to make a speech about the economic progress in Iraq since the fall of the Saddamite regime. Usually, speeches of this sort read like a Stalinist list of tractor production figures. Mr. Bush avoided the statistics and dealt with the towns of Mosul and Najaf anecdotally. Cherry-picking facts isn’t quite lying, but willful misrepresentation of the overall picture is the hallmark of this administration.

The full speech was the second in a series designed to convince Americans that there is still some point to fighting the war in Iraq for the Iraqi government that as yet can’t field an army capable of doing the job itself. In Najaf, Mr. Bush said that the US and Iraqis are trying to fix the “local police force, repair residents' homes, refurbish schools, restore water and other essential service [sic], reopen a soccer stadium, complete with new lights and fresh sod.” A hospital is also open. This is hardly an impressive record for three years’ of occupation, but then, Najaf was held by the resistance for several months (who couldn’t have done anything had there been sufficient US troops). Mr. Bush was very proud of the fact that the Imam Ali shrine is open to pilgrims, but he failed to mention that the shrine was where secular Shi’ite presidential candidate Ayed Allawi was shot at by “worshippers” last week.

Over in Mosul, a largely Kurdish city that had also been taken over by the opposition after the US over-estimated the progress made in keeping the city quiet, “we began working with local leaders to accelerate reconstruction. Iraqis upgraded key roads and bridges over the Tigris River, rebuilt schools and hospitals and started refurbishing the Mosul airport. Police stations and fire houses were rebuilt.” Again, that isn't much to show for all the time and money spent there. Unfortunately, the president’s own speech condemned the political situation there. “This past week, people hanging election posters were attacked and killed [in Mosul],” and he bragged about a rather meagre 50% voter turn out in the most recent election in the province of which Mosul is a part.

What Mr. Bush didn’t talk about was the progress in the Sunni Triangle (there hasn’t been any) nor did he mention any statistics regarding the nation as a whole. The Special Inspector General for Iraqi Reconstruction [SIGIR] testified to Congress at the end of October, and more or less admitted things were less-than-good, even using the term “reconstruction gap.” The Brookings Institution underscores that: oil production was at 1.93 million barrels a day in November, down from 2.514 million in September of 2004. Electricity was on in the nation an average of 13.8 hours a day in November, down from 16 hours in March 2004 – after almost three years, the Americans can’t keep the lights on all day. The US has promised to spend money on reconstruction, it has diverted much of that money to security, and it has not spent much of what wasn’t diverted. The bill this far is $256 billion for combat and reconstruction, and $9 billion of it is under scrutiny for misappropriation by SIGIR.

The president really shouldn’t have made this speech. Construction in Iraq can’t really get going properly until the nation is secure, and that means the military dimension is the overriding concern. Misdirection for an administration that has little credibility left with the American people only adds to its trouble. Iraq’s parliamentary elections are on Thursday, and that should have been Mr. Bush’s focus.


© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
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