Iraq Reconstruction

Everybody at this point in time knows something about the Iraq war. Sadly the reconstruction effort seems to be a lazily covered part of the war. Ten years and a trillion plus dollars later Iraq is a still unstable country plagued by Islamic conflict. The reconstruction movement has been it seems a corrupt business venture to some and a movement of true renaissance to others.  There have been multiple multimillion dollar embezzlement and fraud schemes within the reconstruction process. It seems that reconstruction is very unsuccessful and makes us wonder what is going wrong and why is there not more screutinization for businesses getting involved in the reconstruction process?

The arguments of the articles I read gave a morose look into the reconstruction process of Iraq. The CBS article cited that the Bush administration was expecting to only spend 2 billion tax payer dollars for the whole effort, but it went up exponentially to 51 billion and it has not stopped. The article also cited “154 open criminal investigations into allegations of bribery, conflicts of interest, defective products, bid rigging, and theft stemming from the wars”, and 35 convictions stemming from the reconstruction effort. The Time magazine article I read also gave a good look into the real problem with Iraq is the ongoing Sunni-Shi’ite divide. This deep cultural divide is what is really keeping Iraq from becoming a functional country. What is clear from the CBS article is that corruption and fraud plagued the reconstruction effort in Iraq.

From what I have read it is clear to me the reconstruction is a multibillion dollar sinkhole perpetuated by a war that should never have started in the first place. The reconstruction effort is not only a failure but it was not to me even necessary. It was pointless because the one thing Iraq has plenty of is money. There is a bountiful group of oil fields that could easily cover everything that the reconstruction effort is trying to do. The only thing that could have been tried was trying to cool down the Shi’a–Sunni conflict. However if this was the hope no amount of the money in the world could stop this millennia long conflict. It is clear that with over 50 convictions and 50 billion dollars spent we failed. The U.S. International Development Agency did an abhorrent job of finding investors and contractors. It was a badly run and futile venture for the U.S. Iraq does not need a school it needs a functional community instead of a country still being run by individual Islamic leaders. There needs to be religious tolerance not humanitarianism.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1592849,00.html

http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-500257_162-4767378.html