And yet AGAIN, it comes down to this: Is it malice or incompetence?

This is what happens when you give no-bid, no-accountability contracts to cronies and contributors:

In a troubling sign for the American-financed rebuilding program in Iraq, inspectors for a federal oversight agency have found that in a sampling of eight projects that the United States had declared successes, seven were no longer operating as designed because of plumbing and electrical failures, lack of proper maintenance, apparent looting and expensive equipment that lay idle.

The United States has previously admitted, sometimes under pressure from federal inspectors, that some of its reconstruction projects have been abandoned, delayed or poorly constructed. But this is the first time inspectors have found that projects officially declared a success — in some cases, as little as six months before the latest inspections — were no longer working properly.

The inspections ranged geographically from northern to southern Iraq and covered projects as varied as a maternity hospital, barracks for an Iraqi special forces unit and a power station for Baghdad International Airport.

At the airport, crucially important for the functioning of the country, inspectors found that while $11.8 million had been spent on new electrical generators, $8.6 million worth were no longer functioning.

At the maternity hospital, a rehabilitation project in the northern city of Erbil, an expensive incinerator for medical waste was padlocked — Iraqis at the hospital could not find the key when inspectors asked to see the equipment — and partly as a result, medical waste including syringes, used bandages and empty drug vials were clogging the sewage system and probably contaminating the water system.

The newly built water purification system was not functioning either.

The Administration is spinning this as being caused by Iraqis not maintaining the facilities properly. Funny how they want to have it both ways, isn't it? They want to pat themselves on the back for their efforts to bring Jeffersonian democracy to a Middle Eastern country, but then in the next breath paint them as savages for not maintaining the wonderful facilities that we in our magnanimity have built for them. Sounds sort of like the way Republicans have talked about inner city America for generations, doesn't it?

Funny how under Saddam Hussein, Iraq was a country in which things actually worked but now we're supposed to believe that this educated population has turned into blithering idiots. Perhaps the Iraqis can't maintain these facilities because they were built on the cheap:

Curiously, most of the problems seemed unrelated to sabotage stemming from Iraq’s parlous security situation, but instead were the product of poor initial construction, petty looting, a lack of any maintenance and simple neglect.

A case in point was the $5.2 million project undertaken by the United States Army Corps of Engineers to build the special forces barracks in Baghdad. The project was completed in September 2005, but by the time inspectors visited last month, there were numerous problems caused by faulty plumbing throughout the buildings, and four large electrical generators, each costing $50,000, were no longer operating.

The problems with the generators were seemingly minor: missing batteries, a failure to maintain adequate oil levels in the engines, fuel lines that had been pilfered or broken. That kind of neglect is typical of rebuilding programs in developing countries when local nationals are not closely involved in planning efforts, said Rick Barton, co-director of the postconflict reconstruction project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a research organization in Washington.

So we built all these facilities without involving the Iraqis at all, then didn't train them, and then wonder why they can't operate them? Granted, part of the problem is that because of the sectarian violence DIRECTLY UNLEASHED by George Bush's Iraqi Adventure, much of the education population who CAN leave, has already left. But there is a strong whiff of colonialism about the whole enterprise.

Back before the 2000 election, illustrator Bruce McCall had a cartoon in The New Yorker that was a parody cover of John F. Kennedy Jr.'s George magazine, the parody cover being about George W. Bush. The "lead story" headlined on the cover: "Iran, Iraq, well, which one is it?" It seemed funny at the time, but that level of ignorance about Iraqi society is what has led us to this point. And now this Administration wants us to continue to pour America's future, both in terms of its youth and its financial security, into this black hole that he has created.

When a drunk wants to get behind the wheel, you take away the keys. It's time to take the keys away from this president