Funds Fade, Deaths Rise and Iraq Rebuilding Is Spotty - New York Times

Funds Fade, Deaths Rise and Iraq Rebuilding Is Spotty - New York Times: "As the money runs out on the $30 billion American-financed reconstruction of Iraq, the officials in charge cannot say how many planned projects they will complete, and there is no clear source for hundreds of millions of dollars a year needed to operate the projects that have been finished, according to a report to Congress released yesterday.

"The report, by the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, describes some progress but also an array of projects that have gone awry, sometimes astonishingly, like electrical substations that were built at great cost but never connected to the country's electrical grid.

"With more than 93 percent of the American money now committed to specific projects, it could become increasingly difficult to solve those problems."



Iraq has been lost, due to the incompetence and corruption of the Bush reconstruction program. It is, in effect, a dead man walking. The storm is Iraq is still waiting out there, still waiting to blow into American politics.