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WASHINGTON,
D.C. – U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) issued today’s “Bush Administration’s
Misstatement of the Day” on Iraq reconstruction efforts.
Dow
Jones News Service reported today:
(President)
Bush said that despite the continuing violence in Iraq progress is being
made to rebuild the country and get it back on its feet.
The
New York Times Magazine, however, published a lengthy report on the
failures of US reconstruction efforts in Iraq, the lack of planning for
a post war Iraq, and the Pentagon’s decision to shut out the State Department
from the rebuilding process. The story concluded:
The
real lesson of the postwar mess is that while occupying and reconstructing
Iraq was bound to be difficult, the fact that it may be turning into a
quagmire is not a result of fate, but rather (as quagmires usually are)
a result of poor planning and wishful thinking. Both have been in evidence
to a troubling degree in American policy almost from the moment the decision
was made to overthrow Saddam Hussein's bestial dictatorship.
Schakowsky
said, “Defense Secretary Rumsfeld has been as successful in securing and
rebuilding Iraq as President Bush has been in creating jobs. The
situation will continue to worsen unless and until President Bush replaces
the current team in charge of Iraq and engages the international community
and the United Nations.”
Read
“Blue Print for a Mess,” the Sunday, November 2, 2003 New York Times Magazine
article. |
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