William A. Alexander – 12/29/06

This page was last updated on January 3, 2007.

Money squandered in Iraq; William A. Alexander; Beaver County Times; December 29, 2006.

Mr. Alexander has written at least 20 letters since December 2004, and they all bashed Republicans for something.

Below is a detailed critique of the letter.

“Information is finally coming out of our failure to control and rebuild Iraq after our military victory.

“We now know it takes about $16.8 billion a year to keep our 140,000 troops there. That totals about $67.2 billion for the four years.”

[RWC] Mr. Alexander didn’t tell us where he got his figures and a quick Google search got no relevant hits. Simple math, however, would appear to call Mr. Alexander’s figures into question. $16.8 billion for 140,000 troops is $120,000. When you take everything into account (housing, food, medical facilities, equipment, weapons, et cetera), I have a hard time believing it costs us only $120,000 per year per serviceman/servicewoman.

“We have appropriated more than $400 billion for the war, and a lot of the Iraq costs are not recognized in these appropriations because they are hidden in other areas of the budget.

“This number also does not count the equipment that has been lost or will have to be remanufactured once it is returned.

“Since we know that oil production, availability of electricity and clean water to regular Iraq citizens is worse than it was before the war, or, at best, about the same, not much was well spent in those efforts.”

[RWC] As I believe I’ve asked about previous letters from Mr. Alexander, I wonder where he gets his “facts” or if he just makes this stuff up. You’ll note he doesn’t tell us his sources.

Regarding oil production, pre-war production was about 2 MBPD. According to the US State Department, production for the last several months has averaged about 2.2 MBPD.

Regarding electricity, USAID reports pre-war generation levels (3,958 MW) were reached by October 2003 and hit a peak of 4,584 MW during July 2004. In total, we’ve added 1,292 MW of capacity.

Regarding “clean water” and sewage systems, we “[r]estored or provided new water treatment to over 2.3 million Iraqis and sewage treatment to over 5.1 million.”

A common theme in the reports is – in addition to the security situation – the pre-war facilities were in rapid decline and outdated and/or lacked needed maintenance. The fact the Iraqi infrastructure was falling apart before the war had made restoration of service slower than anticipated.

“Recent books and articles shed light on some of this shortfall, noting the administration’s incompetence and its selection of personnel by cronyism instead of ability and experience thereby guaranteeing failure.”

[RWC] Note Mr. Alexander didn’t provide us with the titles/authors of the “[r]ecent books and articles.”

“Our performance rebuilding Iraq makes our efforts after Katrina on the Gulf Coast look like a tremendous success. The administration uses the ‘vote for this to support our troops card’ every time an appropriation comes up.”

[RWC] As noted above, Mr. Alexander is just flat out lying when it comes to our rebuilding efforts in Iraq.

I wonder if Mr. Alexander realizes state and local governments are responsible for Katrina rebuilding, and both Louisiana and New Orleans are run by Democrats and have been nearly forever.

“Someone in the administration needs to explain in great detail where and how the other $332 billion appropriated for this world-class failure was spent. Had we had congressional oversight of the administration for the last few years, a lot of this could have been addressed in a timely manner, and the outcome might have been better.”

[RWC] I guess Mr. Alexander missed the regular reports from the Government Accountability Office. The GAO is “the audit, evaluation and investigative arm of Congress.”

Who actually believes Mr. Alexander wants/wanted a better outcome? I believe Mr. Alexander is one of those people who believes bad news for the country is good news for his politics.

“Three hundred thirty-two billion dollars is a big number, even by Washington standards. The American people need to be told where and how it was squandered. It could have done a lot of good here in the United States.”

[RWC] Blah, blah, blah.