This is what I have been thinking!

In one of your recent posts about the car bomb attack on the police recruiting station, there was a paragraph also that describes how the insurgents have been bombing the oil piplines and they need to be reconstructed again.

Since you in a thinking mode, think about this....the very fact that Iraq is being rebuilt (airport comes to mind, in that we used Iraqi people who had the knowhow and experience to rebuild it side by side with the coalition people and once rebuilt, it was opened and turned over to the Iraqi's to run and maintain it) little by little, the terrorists go out of their way to bomb or destroy what is being rebuilt in an effort to thwart the Iraqi people from moving forward and gaining control over their own country.

To allow the citizens control defeats what the terrorists want and they kill their own citizens in order to use fear and intimidation to keep them under their thumbs. As Iraqi people die, consider that people with experience, knowhow, and ingenuity are also among the dead. Saddam kept qualified people in his own country from being used by either locking them up in prisons or killing them or killing their families so I would imagine there aren't a whole hell of a lot of them left and most Iraqi citizens would have to be either retrained with new equipment that they aren't familiar with by today's standards or they have to be trained as novices who have a talent that can be utilized for future and more permanent jobs.

Enter the terrorists who think nothing of killing to make a point, and if those newly trained people get in the way, the process starts all over again. Do you think the terrorists will rebuild anything, including the schools, police stations, oil facilities, etc. that they have already bombed? Do you think they want any Iraqi citizen to be smarter and more talented than themselves? Do you think they want any Iraqi citizen to be in any type of powerful position, such as engineers, teachers, doctors, etc?

The outside forces are the helpers and teachers right now because the Iraqi people have been suppressed for far too long and need to get the newest technological knowledge from somewhere....and that knowledge is out there in the other parts of the world and the coalition businesses there know that, the majority of the time, the Iraqi people will learn what they are shown and taught and will take it over themselves as soon as possible.

No doubt about it, nearly every business that comes from the outside to reconstruction Iraq IS making money.....right now. But most of them will be taken over by the Iraqi people later down the road and the money will be kept within their own country, which is as it should be. The most important thing right now is to get the people trained to take care of themselves....and that's a line drawn in the sand by the terrorists still there who are going out of their way to destroy that Iraqi dream.

TONI

Hi, Toni.

But don't you think that the "ordinary" (non-terrorist) Iraqis wouldn't have more "buy-in" if they were making the money, therefore raising more ire when the terrosist destroy the rebuilding? Or is only the US supposed to be an "ownership society?"

-- Dave K.
Speakeasy Moderator
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The opinions expressed above are my own,
and do not necessarily reflect those of CNET!

I'm just saying that right now I don't think there are enough of the ordinary Iraqi citizens left who have the education, training, background, and knowhow to accomplish the tasks that need to be done. I believe that Saddam made sure that those types of people were killed or imprisoned or family members killed as a way to ensure that none of them reached levels in their country that might make them a future threat to him. I may be wrong, but considering how many people he killed, it's logical to me that as paranoid as Saddam was/is that extermination of those types of citizens would have fed into his power trip.

I am just as anxious as most of the rest of the world to get the Iraqi citizens controlling themselves and their country but I think the retraining process with newer technology that they aren't used to dealing with will take a while and if the terrorists keep destroying what little bit is being built up already, it's terribly important to get that under control in any fashion that works best.

TONI

of an INDUCTIVE REASONING

Of course this idea will get shot down, But.........

Since we are PAYING for the rebuilding of Iraq, I kinda think our companies and people should benefit:)
I know, Right wing extremist:)

And proud of it:)
Glenda

So far, following bush's 'plan' has benefited the US companies and their subcontractors a whole bunch, and the Iraqi people not nearly so much.

Dan

Group of head-scratching Iraquis at massive construction site, looking up at big, temporary sign picturing map-logo of mainland USA.

BIG caption splays across the sign:

THEIR tax dollars at work


(vs "your tax dollars at work")

The terrorists are very good at destruction, but I bet they are absolutely useless at construction.
In fact the insurgents are just a bunch of useless thugs.

information. The left is so opposed to George Bush that any pretense of objectivity has been swept aside. Trying to correct the misinformation coming from the left, is like trying to hold back a storm with a finger in the dike. The latest example are the forgeries foisted upon us by CBS.

My guess is that outside contractors are supplying equipment and technology which are not available in Iraq. Where labor or skills are already present in Iraq, I suspect it is being used unless there is a security concern. It simply would not make sense to do otherwise. One does not increase your profits by needlessly transporting workers from around the world.

What the left really wants is for contractors from France, Germany and Russia to be brought in to take over the rebuilding. This would help to restore the status quo which brought Saddam to the Iraqi people, and tried for so long to keep him in power. It would also renew the lucrative deals which enriched so many in these countries and in the UN. Remember who was enriched by the Food for Oil program?

Rosalie,

Had the columnist done any checking, he would have discovered that:

1) The scope of Iraqi reconstruction was in excess of anybody's wildest dreams; there were things destroyed in 1991 that hadn't been rebuilt (that list doesn't of course includes all those new "palaces" that Saddam built post-Desert Storm);

2) While there are many small to mid-sized firms that are working on the reconstruction, the large firms with the expertise to manage this undertaking did not exist, as such projects in Saddam's Iraq were run (corruptly) by the Iraqi government, and;

3) The only other firm that could have managed the work is a French firm - and I doubt that anyone, left or right, would have tolerated that.

Instead, Mr. Sorensen parrots back the usual conspiracy theories of the far left and thinks he has the answer. As is usually the case with these folks, he's not even close.

This is a really wonderful idea. I have no way of knowing how many Iraqi citizens would desire to have this involvement but hope it would be encouraged. Certainly some may fear reprisal, however. I can think of one glitch, however. We may have to find a way to pay them in their own currency, would we not? If so, how would we acquire such? If we pay them in american dollars, at some point in time, the money would need to cycle back into the US economy as its real value comes from what it will purchase in the USA. Could Iraqi citizens accept US currency? Sorry to add questions without answers.

Hi H.G.
I heard or read that the Iraqi people have now got their own new currency.
What's more, they now have their own Stock exchange.
Well, I call that progress.