iraq:
Joseph Chamie, former UN director of the Population Division, said sanitation in the country had regressed to 1950 levels. A recent UN Population Department study showed 1/3 of Iraqis living in poverty; more than 20% in destitution. More than half a million Baghdad residents have no access to water for most of the day; electricity for 3 hours daily. One of eight Iraqis has fled the country. Almost one of nine has died since George W. Bush liberated them; almost one of four Iraqis gone.
(...) In late September 2002, I interviewed Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz and Iraqi Parliament speaker Sadoun Hamadi (now deceased). In addition, I talked to dozens of Iraqis in Baghdad, Najaf, Karballah, Babylon and Mahmoudadyiah. The Sunnis, Shias, Christians, Kurds and Turkmen with whom I spoke all identified themselves as Iraqis.. Whatever their religious or ethnic differences, they agreed on one thing: "Don't come." No matter how much they hated Saddam Hussein, they concurred: a US invasion and occupation would worsen Iraq's situation. "You have no idea what will happen if your armies come here," said Ghassan, an engineer.
(...) He observed the April 9 fall of Baghdad and waited for a US plan to allow Iraq to recover and reconstruct under a viable new government. Instead, US authorities disbanded the coherent institutions--the military (more than 300,000 men with weapons) and the Ba'ath Party. This created massive unemployment and left Iraq without an internal security force. In September 2003, Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) Chief Paul Bremer ordered the privatization of 192 public sector companies. People whom Allawi refers to as Saddam's old boys, a "commercial gang," grabbed the new businesses. Without army and police, looting began. The thieves sold Iraq's infrastructural equipment in neighboring countries. Allawi alleges that the US failed to reconstruct Iraq's electricity, health care and sanitation infrastructure, but instead offered the media an "insipid retelling of 'success' stories."
(...) Bush's bumbling has led to an immense increase in military spending as well. Spending on weapons far outranks education and health outlays. Bush still uses fear as his main political tool. He screamed at Congress for more funds for Iraq and Afghanistan wars and behaved as if they had gotten the country into the mess. Bush claimed the "courage" to take the country to war. Congress and the media rubber stamped his decision. They collectively lack the courage, integrity and responsibility to admit the error and stage a rapid US withdrawal. So, the rest of us had better keep pushing hard.