Bush ponders £10bn New Deal to create jobs in Iraq

THE White House is expected to announce a reconstruction package for Iraq as part of a plan for a “surge” of up to 30,000 troops into Baghdad when President George W Bush unveils America’s new strategy next month.

Bush is being urged to give up to $10 billion (£5.1 billion) to Iraq as part of a “New Deal” that would create work for unemployed Iraqis, following the model of President Franklin D Roosevelt during the 1930s depression.

At the Pentagon, the joint chiefs of staff are insisting on reconstruction funds as part of a package of political and economic measures to accompany the armed forces. They fear the extra troops will be wasted and more lives lost if Bush relies purely on the military to pacify Iraq, according to sources close to General Peter Schoomaker, the army chief of staff.

Military commanders have come round to the idea that an increase of troops is likely to form the backbone of Bush’s new strategy on Iraq. “People are warming to the idea that some sort of surge is necessary,” said a military official.

Robert Gates, the defence secretary, held talks with Bush, Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, and Stephen Hadley, the national security adviser, at Camp David yesterday, where he reported back on his three-day tour of Iraq. He said the willingness of Iraqis to “step forward” had advanced significantly.

Newt Gingrich, the former Republican Speaker of the House and a member of the defence policy board advising the Pentagon, is calling for a cross between the New Deal and the post-second world war Marshall Plan that would “mop up every young Iraqi male who is unemployed”. He said it would be “as big a strategic step towards victory as whether you have more troops or fewer troops”.

Gingrich believes his position as a staunch conservative could help to sell the reconstruction package to sceptical Republicans who argue that Iraq has already cost too money. The Pentagon this month requested an extra $100 billion from Congress as an emergency supplement to the 2007 military budget, bringing the total to $663 billion.

Americans have already spent nearly $40 billion on economic aid for Iraq, much of which has been squandered. Bush’s proposals are likely to be more modest than the former speaker’s but he has been listening carefully to advice from generals such as Peter Chiarelli, who stepped down as head of the multinational forces in Iraq last week. He believes a US-funded, Iraqi-led job creation programme is essential to weaken the power of militias.

Bush is also thought to have been influenced by advice from retired General Jack Keane and Frederick Kagan, author of Choosing Victory, published by the American Enterprise Institute, a neoconservative think tank. The report, which advocates more troops, argues that “reconstruction is a vital part of stabilising and securing the Iraqi population”.

“The military commanders have been emphasising this heavily,” said Kagan. “It is tremendously important. We’re proposing that an economic team goes automatically into areas where the troops are sent in.”

The plan is to extend significantly Chiarelli’s innovative use of Sweat teams (responsible for sewage, water, electricity and trash) to back up military operations.

Local leaders will be asked what they need to improve the quality of life in their neighbourhoods and the unemployed will be put to work. According to Kagan, the scale of the package should be linked to the degree of co-operation over disbanding militias and providing intelligence about insurgents.

Stephen Biddle, a military expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, who recently advised Bush at the Oval Office, is backing plans for economic reconstruction but is sceptical about its chances of success.

“If Sunni death squads are murdering your relatives and you’re afraid they will slaughter you if you compromise with the Americans, promising to rebuild the local health clinic won’t help,” he said.

Yes. And as time has marched on and the facts came forth on the condition of their oil/gas industry, sadly that idea was highly overstated.
It is going to take them a few years at best, assuming they got serious about rebuilding their oil infrastructure with the aid of foreign oil companies, and expanding their current port gross tonnage.
And this cannot be accomplished until the insurgency is put down. To many factors come into play. One cannot have foreign and domestic contruction workers getting killed going to work each day to build an increased oil drilling and refinery structure.
And what oil companies are willing to set up shop in the country at present. This has been an ongoing problem.
The Saddamist and other insurgent elements, e.g. al Qaeda composed of goon balls have attempted all along to destroy Iraq's capability to extract oil sell it, and refine it, and sell the fractions etc.. So along with the other big surprises such as a decrepted national power grid, not enough functional oil pipelines, defunct railroad systems etc., things have moved at a snails pace.
It is going to take years to rebuild Iraq with so much past negligence paid by the Saddam regime. Meanwhile, we have had to put huge amounts of effort and money into building new water treatment and distribution systems, hospitals, schools etc..
Iran was a total disaster prior to the invasion. Now we see only the well to do areas under direct control and allegence to Saddam had much of anything.

Official: Casey Has Not Yet Recommended More Troops
Bush To Hold More Meetings On Strategy

POSTED: 10:16 pm EST December 23, 2006
UPDATED: 10:43 pm EST December 23, 2006

WASHINGTON -- President Bush, drafting an overhaul of his faltering and unpopular war plan, heard Saturday from a Pentagon chief who had just returned from Iraq with a positive impression of Iraqi leaders' plans to address sectarian violence.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates finished his first week on the job by delivering a report to Bush on the three days he spent talking with Iraqi leaders, U.S. commanders and American soldiers. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Peter Pace, who traveled with Gates to Iraq, helped make the presentation.

The early-morning meeting at Camp David in Maryland's mountains lasted about an hour. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, national security adviser Stephen Hadley and Hadley's deputy, J.D. Crouch, who is coordinating the administration's Iraq review, also participated.

White House officials declined to disclose any details of the conversations. Bush is meeting with his national security team again Thursday at his ranch in Crawford, Texas.

"The president is pleased with the progress being made" to design a new policy, said Blain Rethmeier, a Bush spokesman. "The president is leaving all options on the table on the way forward."

With public support for the war falling as violence and U.S. deaths rise, Bush has been eager to show he is ready to make changes - even while he rejects calls from Democrats, who take control of Congress next month, for significant troop withdrawals to begin soon. The president has talked often in recent weeks about the long commitment America must make to Iraq.

He is expect to announce his revamped Iraq strategy in a speech to the nation between the New Year's Day and his Jan. 23 State of the Union address.

"If you're serving on the front lines halfway across the world, it is natural to wonder what all this means for you," Bush said Saturday in his weekly radio address. "I want our troops to know that while the coming year will bring change, one thing will not change, and that is our nation's support for you and the vital work you do to achieve a victory in Iraq."

There are several signs that a proposal to add thousands of U.S. troops to the 140,000 already in Iraq - as a way to control escalating violence, particularly in Baghdad - is gaining favor at the White House.

The Los Angeles Times reported Saturday that Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and other military leaders in Iraq, who had been the primary voices skeptical of a "surge" in troops, have decided to endorse the idea.

But Lt. Col. Christopher C. Garver, spokesman for Casey, said Saturday, "As of this time, General Casey has not recommended more troops be sent here." Rethmeier would neither confirm nor deny the Times story.

Bush has said he has changed his mind and now believes the Army and Marine Corps should be increased in overall size. This process would take years, but still could address some doubts in the military about the drain of even a short-term boost in Iraq.

And while saying he has not decided whether to deploy more U.S. soldiers, the president gave another nod to military leaders this week by making clear he agrees that any such troop infusion must have a mission that is clear and achievable.

During Gates' trip to Iraq, several soldiers told him they thought a short-term increase in troop levels would help. But the defense secretary repeatedly declined to say whether he would recommend such an increase.

Some important players at the Pentagon remain unconvinced that a significant troop increase would help and, in fact, worry it could do more harm than good by giving Iraqis incentive not to make their own inroads. Democrats and other critics also fear American troops will remain mired unless the Iraqis are forced by the prospect of an imminent withdrawal of U.S. soldiers to make progress.

While in Baghdad, Gates did praise Iraqi leaders for having "some concrete plans in mind" to deal with the deadly militias that have brought the country to the brink of civil war between the Shiite majority and Sunni minority. He left Casey with the assignment of putting "flesh on those bones" in consultations over the next few days with the Iraqi government, which has had little success so far reining in the militias or quelling the bloodshed.

Bush has said all along that U.S. troops cannot come home until Iraqis are able to secure and defend their own country without significant American assistance.

The military component of Bush's upcoming plan has drawn the most attention, but it is only one part of what is expected to be a multi-pronged strategy.

It also will include a way to improve the dismal economic picture in Iraq and a new approach to both diplomacy in the region and to the delicate - and deadly - political situation inside Iraq.

http://www.newsnet5.com/news/10599438/detail.html

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This story is B.S.!