Lounsbury: Iraq: Contracts and Issues, State Department pre-War Planning Spot on; Rising Resistance issues

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October 19, 2003

Iraq: Contracts and Issues, State Department pre-War Planning Spot on; Rising Resistance issues

Well, have to close out this flurry of commenting, I finally got the last bit of data in so I can start cracking on finishing up this review and status report. I note it ain't pretty. No wonder everyone has long faces, their rescue plan is going to sink like a fucking rock with the Stateside boys see what the Director has wrought in terms of value added (destroyed).

I made a remark that didn't go down well, although I thought it was funny: "Well, I guess it's good we didn't buy that color printer I wanted, would have to use up all the red ink."

Now, back to Iraq.

Companies Get Few Days to Offer Bids on Iraq Work
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS and NEELA BANERJEE
Published: October 19, 2003
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/19/international/middleeast/19CONT.html

The point which grabbed my attention is the complaints that the CPA-Iraq is opaque and impossible to get throuhg to.

As readers of my comments since April know, I have complained about the very same problem, dating right back to June when the Fund was aggressively, through me largely, prepping for the now aborted Iraqi expansion. Now, we at that point, we're looking at handling some serious private capital to bring to bear in Iraq. One would think that would have attracted CPA-Iraq interest (it did actually) but they remained difficult to get through to with constant changes in staff. An impression of internal chaos and disorganization. I suspect it remains the same at least insofar as I can get a sense from my close-mouthed CPA-I amigos and contacts.

Further, this item confirms once again why DoD should never have been in charge, why State should be.
State Dept. Study Foresaw Trouble Now Plaguing Iraq
By ERIC SCHMITT and JOEL BRINKLEY
Published: October 19, 2003
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/19/international/worldspecial/19POST.html?pagewanted=all&position=

As memory serves, The Washington Post got this first, but this New York Times article rather covers more ground, again as memory serves.

I will not rehash this in depth, but it bears close reading as it is in many ways a direct rebuttal to the posturing by Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz et al that the issues of April-Present could not be foreseen, planned for and otherwise dealt with in a more proactive and realistic posture. One does, however, have to listen to the regional experts, such as myself, and take the self-serving self-dealing of people like Chalabi with a large grain of salt. But the DoD gullible neophytes took bait, hook, line and sinker.

Now as to the issue of resistance, two articles:
DISPATCHES
Iraq Resistance Remains Threat to U.S. Forces
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/19/international/worldspecial3/19MILI.html?pagewanted=all&position=

and

Arrest of Iraqi Cleric Sparks Confrontations With Shiites
Challenge to U.S. May Usher In Conflict With New Group
By Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, October 19, 2003; Page A24
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A47072-2003Oct18?language=printer

Both emphasize that time is running short.

That is why I find the idiotic political wrangling over the 20 (15) billion to be so very horrifying. Another set of appropriations will come up, then it will be time to take out the knives, but now we need moola and but fast.

October 19, 2003

Iraq: Contracts and Issues, State Department pre-War Planning Spot on; Rising Resistance issues

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