The New York times has a story today (and I heard it on NPR) about the first IG report on rebuilding Iraq (or not). Didn't Bush just decide to cut the funding for rebuilding? Current electricity levels are lower than they were in March 2003...the link is below and excerpts are in quotes
http://www.nytimes.com/...
"The first official history of the $25 billion American reconstruction effort in Iraq depicts a program hobbled from the outset by gross understaffing, a lack of technical expertise, bureaucratic infighting, secrecy and constantly increasing security costs, according to a preliminary draft."
"The document, which begins with the secret prewar planning for reconstruction and touches on nearly every phase of the program through 2005, was assembled by the office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction and debated last month in a closed forum by roughly two dozen experts from outside the office."
"A person at the forum provided a copy of the document, dated December 2005, to The New York Times. The inspector general's office, whose agents and auditors have been examining and reporting on various aspects of the rebuilding since early 2004, declined to comment on the report other than to say it was highly preliminary."
"'It's incomplete," said a spokesman for the inspector general's office, Jim Mitchell. "It could change significantly before it is finally published.'"
You mean change like the climate or energy documents change before release?
"The draft report is emerging as the rebuilding comes under fresh criticism in the United States and Iraq. Partly because of sabotage to oil and gas pipelines and electrical transmission lines, Iraq's oil exports have plummeted over the last several months, and its national electrical output has again dipped below prewar levels."
"After years of shifting authority, agencies that have come into and out of existence and that experienced constant staff turnover, the rebuilding went through another permutation last month with almost no public notice. The Corps of Engineers has been given command of the severely criticized office set up by President Bush to oversee some $13 billion of the reconstruction funds."