A Compact for Iraq

After his fifth visit to Iraq, Democrat Senator Joseph P Biden made a major speech
to the Brookings Institute, June 21 2005.(AJ).

Postscript: Challenging Senator Biden

A response to Senator Biden’s speech from a correspondent, a US Government civilian employee working in Iraq, describes the speech as ”from the opening paragraph to the end, almost all cheap shots, half-truths and just plain bullshit.”

’The part right at the beginning about super high security… is true, but the guy is a US Senator, he would be swept around like that anywhere, including in Paris probably! So, a cheap shot half-truth.”

Baghdad has 11 hours of electricity not the 8 hours claimed by Biden. But, more importantly, the correspondent suggests “the output of electricity is HIGHER than last summer, but the DEMAND has gone way up because of the booming consumer economy, so the number of hours of electricity is up only slightly even though electric production is way up. So, another cheap shot half truth.”
On the security front, the newly-trained Iraqi forces and Marines have been “counterattacking the insurgents for months now, versus last year when we were on the defensive and the Green Zone was being mortared every day and police stations were being overrun.” With only two mortars in the last month, and Iraqi police casualties considerably lower, “it is bullshit to say things have not improved in the past year.” “Car bombs blowing up soft targets like vegetable markets, barber shops and restaurants is last ditch desperation,” the correspondent states.

In response to Biden’s point that only $8 billion of $24 billion has been spent on reconstruction, “that is because money is not released, the checks are not actually cut, until the project is done. So if a railway or a dam or power lines take three years to fix, and it is one-third done, then the money to pay is COMMITTED to the project, but only part of it has actually been SPENT. Biden knows this process after 30 years in the Senate, so this is more technically true but practically speaking bullshit.”

In a a polished performance before the Council on Foreign Relations think tank in Washington, Dc, last night Iraqi premier Ibrahim Jaafari acknowledged that terrorism remained a threat but insisted that since the transitional government took office in March, thousands of terrorists had been detained and the number of car bombings had dropped from 12-14 per day to less than one.

'The general trend is very much a downward,' he said. 'Previously, people used to avoid going out but now they stay out very late at night, so there has been a qualitative improvement in the security situation,' said Jaafari.

The Iraqi leader drew analogies with the American war of independence and other struggles for freedom. 'We acknowledge that the blood of your sons has mixed with the blood of our sons and paid a very high price and sacrifice to bring about democracy and freedom,' he said.