"Even with violence at its lowest level in four years.... Iraq has few functioning modern factories to provide solid-paying jobs, and many of its institutions, including schools, are still getting back on their feet.... Among major hurdles is the need to rebuild destroyed city centers."
We destroyed a nation, folks, and never rebuilt it!
"Iraq strives for growth in jobs; Officials hiring thousands for day tasks" by Sally Buzbee, Associated Press | July 18, 2008
BAGHDAD - They fan out across Baghdad in summer's scorching heat - men in blue overalls picking up trash, mowing the sparse grass in parks, and standing on ladders to paint highway underpasses and prune palm trees.
Iraq's government has launched a job-creation program in recent months in a first step to address high unemployment and revive the economy - moves that US and Iraqi officials call crucial in advancing Iraq from this summer's relative calm to a more lasting stability.
Baghdad officials are hiring as many as 4,000 people a day, paying most a small daily rate to clean streets, do repair work, and complete other small tasks such as painting signs. Many provinces have similar programs, but in smaller numbers.
The national government also is offering limited job training, and is paying unemployment benefits of about $100 a month to some jobless people.
Even with violence at its lowest level in four years, solving unemployment will not be simple. Iraq has few functioning modern factories to provide solid-paying jobs, and many of its institutions, including schools, are still getting back on their feet.
Hazim Kadim, 23, works as one of the new street cleaners in Baghdad, earning $8 a day, although he has a teacher's certificate. He has been unable to get a teaching job.
"I want to work a real job, a job that is in my profession," he said. "These jobs, they are very little."
High unemployment - estimated between 35 percent and 50 percent nationally by the labor ministry and by some outside economists - has long fed Iraq's violence, beginning with the 2003 invasion. The decision to disband Saddam Hussein's army, in particular, left thousands of men out of work, pushing many into the arms of the Sunni insurgency.
Other Iraqis were so desperate for jobs that they risked their lives to work for US officials and international groups. US-led efforts to revive state factories and attract private investment foundered as the violence grew.
The reasons for high unemployment are many, but most ultimately cycle back to the violence that afflicted Iraq's 27 million people for years: the battles in cities like Baqouba, Basra, and Mosul, and the sectarian threats that drove people from neighborhoods and jobs in Baghdad.
That's called liberation, bub.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has begun a major push to increase trade ties and attract investment from neighbors such as Turkey. But investment is arriving slowly and sporadically, even in key industries like oil, for which a law meant to pave the way for investment is still hung up in parliament.
Not all of Iraq's economic problems resulted from the war.
The economy was state-controlled and in the doldrums under Hussein, discouraging private entrepreneurship and outside investment. Years of UN sanctions imposed after Iraq's occupation of Kuwait proved a devastating blow, depriving Iraq of modern technology and spare parts to maintain power stations and factories.
Yeah, right, it was all Saddam's fault. I'm tired and I'm sick of this BS shit shovel!
With the rot so deep, reviving the economy is a formidable challenge, even for a country awash in $70 billion in oil revenues.
There are no recent, generally accepted estimates on how much it would cost to secure and rebuild Iraq, perhaps because early figures floated by the UN, World Bank, and Bush administration proved remarkably low.
Yeah, they didn't shine smoke up our asses and lie, they just proved remarkably low with the estimates!
But some private economists have pegged the overall figure at $80 billion to $100 billion, depending on the definition of a "rebuilt Iraq."
Among major hurdles is the need to rebuild destroyed city centers to get people and shops back. There is also an urgent desire to return refugees to their homes."
And check this out:
WASHINGTON — President Bush and Iraq's prime minister have agreed to set a "general time horizon" for bringing more U.S. troops home from the war, a dramatic shift from the administration's once-ironclad unwillingness to talk about any kind of deadline or timetable.
The announcement Friday put Bush in the position of offering to talk with Iraqi leaders about a politically charged issue that he adamantly has refused to discuss with the Democratic-led Congress at home.
Yeah, he WOULDN'T LISTEN to the AMERICAN PEOPLE, but he'll listen to the Iraqis -- now!
Is there something OFFENSIVE about this, readers?
I personally think this is being done to free up troops for Iran!
Of course, this gets cut:
In Baghdad yesterday, thousands of worshipers gathered to hear a sermon by Sheik Mohammed al-Mousawi, an ally of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who denounced arrests of Sadrists by Iraqi forces.
Instead we get more war-promoting propaganda!
CAMP VICTORY, Iraq - US forces in Iraq are launching a new crackdown on weapons smuggling from Iran, in part by tighter monitoring of border crossings, a US commander said yesterday.
The US military, along with a group of civilians that includes some retired FBI agents and US customs enforcement agents, will work with Iraq's border enforcement squads to tighten passport screening, cargo inspection, and other border actions, Oates said."
Yup, they can GO GUARD the IRAN-IRAQ border while leaving the U.S. BORDER with Mexico wide open!!!
How do you like that, America?
Are you ever being fed HORSE SHIT or what?
And it NEVER STOPS, 'murkns, so chew, baby, chew!!!!!
BAGHDAD - Sunni participation in the Iraqi government has been an important goal for the United States, and the return of the Sunni bloc will be seen as progress in an otherwise bumpy political reconciliation process.
Also yesterday, Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain made an unannounced visit to Iraq. He held talks with senior Iraqi officials in Baghdad, including Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and President Jalal Talabani, and then flew to the southern city of Basra to meet with British troops.
Brown, at a news conference in Baghdad, said that his aim was to reduce troop numbers eventually but that he would not set an "artificial timetable" for that, echoing language long used by the Bush administration regarding US troops in Iraq.
Brown's visit occurred on the eve of a trip to Iraq by Barack Obama, whose stated policy is to withdraw all combat brigades by the middle of 2010. In an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel, Maliki said that goal was consistent with his objectives.
"Barack Obama talks about 16 months," Maliki said in the interview. "That, we think, would be the right time frame for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes."
The legal basis for British and US troops to be in Iraq expires with a UN mandate at the end of December, and Britain, like the United States, is in the process of negotiating a new arrangement under which its forces would remain. Britain has about 4,000 soldiers in Iraq.BAGHDAD - In a city with constant electricity shortages but no lack of sunshine, the new buzz is solar energy.
Teams of engineers have appeared along major Baghdad roadways, bolting panels and bulbs to rows of towering steel poles to make solar-powered streetlights.
Surging oil prices have fueled interest in solar power and other renewable energy sources across the United States, where pressure also is building to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to fend off global warming.
Yup, keep pushing that agenda!!!
And this is a TWO-FER: Hot fart mist AND Iraq progress!!
It is PAINFUL to read the AmeriKan MSM these days, folks!!!
But Iraq's decision to embrace clean energy has little to do with cost cutting or the environment: Iraqi policy makers want to improve security, and the national grid doesn't supply enough electricity to illuminate city streets.
For Iraqis, the lack of reliable power has been one of the biggest frustrations of the war. The US government has committed $4.91 billion to repairing the ravaged electricity infrastructure and bringing new generating units online. But most Iraqis can count on just a few hours of power a day.
Remember, money, money, money -- and FOR WHAT?!
It's been FIVE YEARS ALREADY!!!!
Faced with another long, hot summer without sufficient electricity, an Iraqi journalist confronted a US general at a news conference in the spring and demanded to know why the military wasn't harnessing the sun's rays for the national grid.
Iraqi reporters are BETTER than AmeriKan ones!!!!
Iraq's electricity grid already was in a state of disrepair after years of sanctions when US-led forces invaded in March 2003. The US efforts have added about 2,200 megawatts of daily generating capacity, which now stands at about 5,500 megawatts.
Yeah, it's all Saddam's fault (as if suffocating, war-criminal sanctions had nothing to do with it), and the U.S. is making it better.
Haven't we been hearing the SAME OLD SHIT for FIVE FUCKING YEARS?!?!
But the growth in demand has far outpaced supply. Iraqis are snapping up other energy-consuming devices that have come onto the market since the fall of Saddam Hussein.
US reconstruction efforts have added to the pressure on the national grid as new hospitals, schools, water treatment plants, and other facilities come online. Essential services are guaranteed a near-continuous supply of electricity, which leaves little for business and residential consumers.
Although capacity has improved, production levels rarely achieve their potential. Transmission towers are frequently attacked, causing disruptions throughout the network. A severe drought has reduced output from hydroelectric plants by nearly 30 percent. The sector is also beset by fuel shortages.
Iraq sits atop the world's third-largest proven oil reserves. But the country has limited refining capabilities and imports large quantities of diesel to keep its turbines spinning."
And you really want to see the shit-meter hit the red? Voila!
"US general: al-Qaida may be easing effort in Iraq
BAGHDAD (AP) — After intense U.S. assaults, al-Qaida may be considering shifting focus to its original home base in Afghanistan, where American casualties are running higher than in Iraq, the top U.S. commander in Iraq said Saturday.
"We do think that there is some assessment ongoing as to the continued viability of al-Qaida's fight in Iraq," Gen. David Petraeus told The Associated Press in an interview at his office at the U.S. Embassy.
Whatever the result, Petraeus said no one should expect al-Qaida to give up entirely in Iraq.
Yeah, Al-CIA-Duh" isn't getting out of Iraq anytime soon, yup!
"They're not going to abandon Iraq. They're not going to write it off. None of that," he said. "But what they certainly may do is start to provide some of those resources that would have come to Iraq to Pakistan, possibly Afghanistan."
He said there are signs that foreign fighters recruited by al-Qaida to do battle in Iraq are being diverted to the largely ungoverned areas in Pakistan from which the fighters can cross into Afghanistan. U.S. officials have pressed Pakistan for more than a year to halt the cross-border infiltration. It remains a major worry not only for the war in Afghanistan but also for Pakistan's stability.
This is SUCH AGENDA-PUSHING GARBAGE as to make one SCREAM!
Aaaaaaaaahhhh!!!!
Discussing al-Qaida in cautious terms, Petraeus said he is not certain of the reliability of the intelligence information about the terrorist network's latest thinking. He was adamant, however, that until now al-Qaida has seen Iraq as its best opportunity for establishing a militant Islamic state closer to the Persian Gulf.
He applauded the latest evidence of movement toward reconciliation by Sunnis and Shiites — the announcement Saturday that Iraq's largest Sunni Arab political bloc had ended a nearly yearlong boycott of the Shiite-led government.
Petraeus said he was encouraged at the possibility of al-Qaida reconsidering Iraq as its highest priority war front.
"There is some intelligence that has picked this up," he said, adding, "It's not solid gold intelligence.
This information, while unconfirmed, parallels reports that fewer foreign fighters are joining the insurgency in Iraq.
"We do know the foreign fighter flow into Iraq has been reduced very substantially," he said. From a peak of 80 to 100 foreign fighters entering Iraq each month, the total has dropped as low as 20 per month, he said.
He attributed the decline to a combination of factors. They include the intense U.S. and Iraqi military operations against al-Qaida in Baghdad, Mosul and elsewhere, and stronger actions by neighboring countries to prevent militants from crossing into Iraqi territory. He mentioned Saudi Arabia as an example.
Honestly, I really am tired of the propaganda.
It's always, WE ARE WINNING, BUT...
Well, I AM SICK of being LIED TO by SHIT MEDIA!!!!!!!!!!
Got it, fucksticks?!!!
The other main source of violence in Iraq over the past year — Shiite militia extremists — also has been curbed. Petraeus said that whether leaders of those Shiite groups, who fled in many cases to Iran, end up returning to fight for control of such Baghdad sections as Sadr City will be a critical bellwether.
"This will be very important because it will be an indicator of whether Iran intends to start a new chapter in its relationship with Iraq, or not," he said."
Translation: IRAN is ON DECK and SOON!!!!
Fuck you, puke-tray-us!!!!
And FUCK YOU, too, AmeriKan SHIT MSM!!!!!!!!!
