Iraq Reconstruction To Increase Tenfold

Reuters reports that reconstruction work in Iraq is about to increase tenfold:

Surging violence in Iraq this month has disrupted reconstruction work in parts of the country, but plans are still on track for a tenfold increase in the number of projects, a U.S. general said Sunday.

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General Thomas Bostick, in charge of implementing projects paid for from $18.4 billion of U.S. money slated for Iraq, said clashes had caused only delays in the worst trouble spots.

"We're not going to put contractors in between bullets," he told Reuters in an interview in his office in a marbled palace formerly used by ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.

"When violence occurs in a place like Najaf, then the kind of construction that we would like to be doing, whether it's schools or hospitals, is obviously going to slow down," said Bostick, commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Gulf Region Division.

U.S. strategists see rebuilding Iraq's wrecked power, water and sewage facilities as vital to boosting the legitimacy of interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's government and undermining support for insurgents ahead of elections due in January.

I find it troubling that only about $800 million of $18.4 billion approved last October has been spent. Reconstruction is too important not to get it done. According to Reuters the military responds to criticism of the pace of reconstruction by pointing out that $7 billion has been committed to contracts and at least 60,000 Iraqis were already employed on projects managed by U.S. civilians aiming to improve utilities. How many Iraqis would be employed if moreof the reconstruction money had been spent.