After 1000 Days of Failure in Iraq: DOD Out/State Dept. In (Juan Cole)

[kpete]

Guest Editorial by Fisher: State Dept. Replaces DoD in Iraq

IRAQ RECONSTRUCTION: STATE IN, PENTAGON OUT

By William Fisher


After a thousand days of widely acknowledged failure in the job of rebuilding Iraq, the Department of Defense has quietly been relieved of that responsibility, with the State Department taking over as America’s lead reconstruction agency and coordinating the work of all other government departments.

While supporters of the policies of President George W. Bush dismiss the change as an administrative adjustment, others suggest it is symbolic of a decades-old turf battle between the two departments, and the administration’s increasing frustration with the reconstruction performance of the DOD and its contractors.

They also point to the switch as an example of how the president goes about making policy changes in Iraq: exhorting the public to “stay the course” while changing it without fanfare.

While reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan have been made far more difficult by security concerns, they have also been plagued by massive corruption, overcharging by many American contractors, lack of transparency and accountability in the contracting process, and confusion about lines of responsibility among U.S. Government agencies, and between the U.S. and Iraqi governments.
http://www.juancole.com/

[spindrifter]

1. We are still F*cked