Don't tell me. The Soviets are going to pass us in science, the planet is cooling, and the Japanese business methods will allow them to become the largest economy in the world soon.

Q: will the oil prices for the american consumers drop when the US starts getting the iraqish oil?
A: no


Q: Is this war funded with money from US tax payers?
A: no


Q: does this war make the USA safer place than before?
A: no


Simple as that. You wanted a war. You got a war.

You fuckers are so small minded.

In 1948 the US invested 14 BILLION dollars into the rebuilding of Europe. It was called the Marshal Plan.

This is what the United States does.

I see nothing wrong with imperialism.

When you account for 30% of the world economy you dont really have a choice.

That war was a long term investment

:glugglug

Thanks to the sanctions imposed by the original Bush company. So in fact the US did destroy the country.

You got the wrong answer for question number 2. 67%. Not good.

*cough*. UN .. unless you think the US rules the UN in which case why have it at all?

saddam being a loose canon, and what his actions brought on them, destroyed the country. Before him the standard of living in Iraq was pretty good.

you are talking like a total idiot

I'm guessing you didn't get the point and are lost.

This is 2003. We're in a whole different world than 1948. They didn't even have Television yet back then. LOL.

The sanctions were imposed by the UN...not the US. In addition the monies that were recieved by the "oil for food" program as well as the monies recieved by smuggled oil...was used by Saddam for things other than the maintinance of the infrastructure or for the good of his people.

The US gets blamed often for the UN actions. So I've came to the conclusion that people think the US rules the UN. It's fun watching people say it.

yup you are the only one here that gets the point.

Iraq has a place on the global market as soon as they are up and running.

The USA will get paid back.

Popular predictions from the 1970s based upon extrapolating a few years data or world political trends 20 years into the future.

Looking at the past 100 years, this is one of the quietest times in history. Don't you agree?

true,but you got my point i think

what i dont get is....does Iraq really need 1000 new schools? That's a big number for a small country like Iraq.

Bombing occured in a very small part of the Iraq and normally most of these buildings should be like before, unless they didnt have at all which I doubt.

a school could be as little as one classroom.

To start with I'm not particularly in favor of paying for these schools with US tax dollars.

The plan is not to just to rebuild schools but also to build schools.
Considering the Iraqi literacy rate is about 25% for women and 40% overall, I don't find it surprising that they didn't have them at all in many regions.

A quick estimate I just made is that there are about 10 million Iraqis of school age based on 24 million Iraqis. That's 10,000 per school if those are the only schools. Unknown to me how many schools in Iraq.

i couldnt agree more!

see sig:Graucho

A.) you've got to figure it is going to take a long time to staff those schools etc...
Much less enroll kids (older ones are probably uninterested)

B.) Building public infrastructure should help EMPLOY Iraqis. (Given it is shit since we have bombed the fuck ouot of them twice in a decade).

We should use Iraqi oil money to help finance the police in their country and rebuild the infrastructure under a provisional government.

Quite simple.

We will see how many countries line up to get a piece of that contracting action...

But Joe American tax payer shouldn't pay shit to rebuild another country with such large assets...we didn't pay to rebuild Kuwait.

Homophobe.

Colin, your numbers make sense.

KRL do you have an online article regarding the new schools? Google news doesnt have anything yet.

I can imagine although 1000 new schools seems large number, the cost should be small having in mind they will be done by iraqish workers. At the moment nobody works at Iraq. Having a large part working and getting paid can bring a partial stability which is missing.

Halliburton gets it all.

http://www.halliburton.com/news/arch...nws_032403.jsp

http://www.why-war.com/news/2003/08/28/hallibur.html

'Halliburton, the company formerly headed by Vice President Cheney, has won contracts worth more than $1.7 billion out of Operation Iraqi Freedom and stands to make hundreds of millions more dollars under a no-bid contract awarded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, according to newly available documents.'

How many qualified companies did Haliburton beat out for the contract?

The more Bush manages to piss the US population off, the less a chance that he will be re-elected.

Then again, he does carry a certain responsibility towards Iraq and its people. Helping them rebuild after bombing the living shit out of them for reasons beyond good and evil, that makes sense to me.

I dont think there was anyone to beat out. It was a no bid no brainer that this company would be given most of the work, it was this way the first time around ;) Cheney's old company got the work last time, and this time

Yes, and oddly France was livid over the U.S. allocating contracting work to majority U.S. contractors...

lol

k. ;) Let me rephrase.

How many other companies in the US are there that can do this work?

I don't think there's much one can tell about Bush's re-election chances at this point. He might lose in a landslide or vice versa.

Just half a year ago many people though Bush would be close to unbeatable. I think that turned out to be premature and foolish. I'd say the same thing now on both sides. Way too early to tell.

50% approval is 50% approval. It's a wash. Half and half. The future will determine the election. Not the past.

I never questioned any of this and to be honest have no clue.

I am no carpenter. ;)

Was just dropping a link

"Business week" has an article called "outsourcing war" I'm busy and don't have time to quote it...

But there are only about 4 large companies who do the same work as Kellogg Brown and Root (Haliburton)

They are in many ways a private mercanary force paid by the military...and staffed by ex military.

lol... they boast of more generals per square foot than the pentagon.

Looks like you are correct.

$1.7 billion of an estimated $50-$75 billion that it will take to rebuild Iraq is not exactly getting it all.

None, zero, nada. Haliburton was awarded the contract in secrecy months before the war started.

As reported on 60 Minutes last week:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/...in551091.shtml

'Even before the first shots were fired in Iraq, the Pentagon had secretly awarded Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root a two-year, no-bid contract to put out oil well fires and to handle other unspecified duties involving war damage to the country?s petroleum industry. It is worth up to $7 billion.'

'Under normal circumstances, the Army Corps of Engineers would have been required to put the oil fire contract out for competitive bidding. But in times of emergency, when national security is involved, the government is allowed to bypass normal procedures and award contracts to a single company, without competition.

And that's exactly what happened with Halliburton.'

From the same article:

'Bob Grace is president of GSM Consulting, a small company in Amarillo, Texas, that has fought oil well fires all over the world. Grace worked for the Kuwait government after the first Gulf War and was in charge of firefighting strategy for the huge Bergan Oil Field, which had more than 300 fires. Last September, when it looked like there might be another Gulf war and more oil well fires, he and a lot of his friends in the industry began contacting the Pentagon and their congressmen.

?All we were trying to find out was, who do we present our credentials to,? says Grace. ?We just want to be able to go to somebody and say, ?Hey, here's who we are, and here's what we've done, and here's what we do.??

?They basically told us that there wasn't going to be any oil well fires.?
Grace showed 60 Minutes a letter from the Department of Defense saying: "The department is aware of a broad range of well firefighting capabilities and techniques available. However, we believe it is too early to speculate what might happen in the event that war breaks out in the region."

It was dated Dec. 30, 2002, more than a month after the Army Corps of Engineers began talking to Halliburton about putting out oil well fires in Iraq.'

Phht, its all about oil

emphasis added.

Bechtel also has contracts...and I suspect that several other companies do to...but the news media likes to sensationalize...so it makes for a better story to play up Halliburton...as well as Bechtel.

Speaking of Bechtel, they got a $680 million contract to rebuild the infrastructure in Iraq.

That contract was awarded by the State Department, which used to be run by George Schultz, who sits on Bechtel's board of directors.

You see nothing wrong with any of this?

Also to think that they dont have sub companies that are controlled by the same hands and do different things is silly.

If they build 1000 schools they can teach the country american english and history.

I have the feeling that the American population starts to be more an more aware of the inner-political situation and that Bush is not really doing his job too well.

But then again, once Jeb will fix the Florida election like he did in 2000, his bro will win the race this time again.

How do YOU think government works?

Sure, it's shady. It's somewhat like log rolling (if I remember the term correctly.) That's how politics works. "Everyone does it".

You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.

oh comon KRL it's not about the education it's about the rbuilding contracts I'm sure that contract will be a nice score for one of papa Bush's clients...

funny thing is even under Sadam Iraq had one of the most educated countries in the mid east... even women could go to school there... maybe we took the wrong dictator out...

Not really...since both companies are two of the largest international companies that the country has and are imminently qualified...experience wise and resource wise to do any construction job...on any scale. In addition the two companies only have a relatively small percentage of the estimated cost of $50-$75 billion that it will take to rebuild Iraq. Furthermore I suspect that there are other companies that have contracts but since the media likes to sensationalize "news" it is to their interest to play up Halliburton and Bechtel and their Republican connections...as I have already mentioned.

wow, i wonder what happened 12 years ago.

:BangBang: :BangBang:

Dude, c'mon bro - we took 800 billion dollars of oil from them... we can't exactly go over there talking about improving their lifestyles and take all their money, land, and run.. lol :)

who is we?