[link|http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-fg-rebuild8sep08,1,3149580.story?coll=la-iraq-complete&ctrack=1&cset=true|http://www.latimes.c...track=1&cset=true]


"The U.S. will halt construction work on some water and power plants in Iraq because it is running out of money for projects, officials said Wednesday."
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"Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.), who has been critical of the Iraq rebuilding effort, said the Bush administration's vision for using reconstruction funds to stabilize Iraq "was largely a chimera, a castle built of sand."

"Reconstruction in Iraq has been slower, more painful, more complex, more fragmented and more inefficient than anyone in Washington or Baghdad could have imagined a couple of years ago," said Kolbe, chairman of the subcommittee."
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"Another concern is corruption. Stuart W. Bowen Jr., the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, said his office was conducting 58 criminal investigations in Iraq, including several that were close to prosecution. A few U.S. contractors have faced criminal charges.

"We need to lean forward and support, emphasize, do everything we can to stand up the anti-corruption structures within Iraq in an effective way," Bowen said. "I just think that without inculcating an ethic of integrity at the core of this democracy \ufffd this fledgling democracy \ufffd that it will founder very soon."

Now, what do you think the chances are of us "inculcating an ethic of integrity"?

More billions, it seems, down the drain.