IRAQ: Focus on reconstruction in Fallujah ("Little progress")

[Barrett808]

IRAQ: Focus on reconstruction in Fallujah
24 May 2005 12:06:20 GMT
Source: IRIN

FALLUJAH, 24 May (IRIN) - Reconstruction of Fallujah, the city which was the scene of fierce battles between US forces and insurgents between November 2004 and January 2005, has been slow according to local officials.

Little progress has been made despite Washington allocating US $200 million for rehabilitation efforts and compensation for families.

Nearly 80 percent of the population fled Fallujah, which is 60km west of the Iraqi capital Baghdad and so far only half of them have returned, aid officials have said.

Local people complain that there are still no basic facilities such as sewage systems, adequate electricity and water supplies and there are disputes over how much compensation has been distributed so far. About 70 percent of buildings, many of them houses, were destroyed during the conflict.

(more)

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/96cb1e0d5747c8a51412e2e3434509a6.htm

[leftchick]

1. Martial law in fallujah. You may leave but you may not get back in!

From Dahr Jamail. The whole MoJo article is well worth the read. I don't know how Dahr stays sane.

~snip~

Not too long after, I get an email from a friend in Baghdad who's just spoken with a friend of his, a teacher in Fallujah. She crossed another kind of "border" there, also guarded by Americans -- a border around her own city. She had to undergo a retinal scan mandated by the Americans and had all ten fingers printed in order to obtain the necessary identification badge which, unfortunately, she then lost while shopping in a Baghdad market. When she tried to return to Fallujah without it, Iraqi National Guard soldiers wouldn't let her back in.

"She told them she'd lost her ID in Baghdad at the market, that she wants to go home, that they have to let her in, but they refused," my friend wrote. "A neighbor of hers inside Fallujah was there and told them she was his neighbor, but they refused. She called her husband with her neighbors' mobile and he came to the checkpoint with her papers, showing that she is his wife and he lives in Fallujah but they still refused to let her in."

She was crying, my colleague said, as she related her woes to him. She had lost 9 relatives during the American assault on the city in November, 2004. Then he wrote: "I want you to tell your friends and your audience about this. Please ask them what would happen if they were prevented from getting inside their city although the people inside knew they were a teacher who had to get to their school?"

My friend also wanted me to ask what Americans would do if our country were invaded and the only ID that was worth anything was that given by the invading forces -- even though you had several of your regular forms of identification with you?


http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2005/05/dahr_jamail_coming_home.html

[gratuitous]

2. "Little progress"? What?

I thought Fallujah was about to get an MISL franchise or something! Now they're saying "little progress"?

:wtf:

[Roland99]

3. Schools used as military bases, raw sewage could lead to disease in summer

Sounds like a great vacation spot!

[Frederik]

4. 70% of buildings destroyed...

What a disaster. And there are more Fallujas. Smaller cities in Western Iraq have gotten the same treatment.

[Barrett808]

5. Yes: Ramadi, Al Qaim...Hersh reports that systematic destruction of cities

is the strategic plan. Abizaid says he can kill 4 or 5 cities a year.