WP: Bremer provides jobs, food, money to fix electricity, a short

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term job program to fix Iraq infrastructure, money to several hundred thousand FORMER soldiers..but for OUR Veterans, homeless, jobless....and powerless cities...NO MONEY...what is shrub doing over there...BRING OUR SOLDIERS HOME now!!!!! the shrub wouldn't support a $350 million bill to fix OUR power grids...yet for Iraq, shrub is more than happy to pay Bechtel $680 Million to fix the electricity...

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American officials have paid salaries to a quarter-million government workers. And Bremer also has decided to compensate several hundred thousand former soldiers.

To address the problem, Bremer said he is spending $300 million on short-term jobs and other plans intended to stimulate the economy, such as offering micro-loans to small-business owners. In southern Iraq, he said, almost 90,000 people have been hired by the authority to clean out irrigation canals.

The authority also has been continuing the monthly food rations that were handed out by Hussein's government.....

Restoring the power system is expected to take more than two years and cost more than $2 billion, U.S. officials said. The U.S. Agency for International Development already has earmarked more than $200 million of a $680 million contract it awarded to engineering giant Bechtel for electricity repairs.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7161-2003Aug17.html