The $87 Billion Money Pit

Instead, the administration, harking back to the occupation of Japan and Germany, has fought off the international community's demands for a faster handover to the Iraqis. The open-ended nature of the occupation, combined with Washington's refusal to explain in detail what its plans for Iraq are, continues to generate ill will, especially among Iraqis.

The Bush administration can certainly point to a number of successes: many sewage lines have been restored (about 1,700 have been repaired in Baghdad alone, Natsios says proudly), and there are ample food supplies. The Coalition authorities also deserve credit for handing over some operations to the Iraqis. At Baghdad's Mamun central switching station, it's Iraqi technicians, working under the Ministry of Communications, who have painstakingly spliced together 50,000 paper-insulated phone lines. Says Bechtel site manager Ben Cravey: "They put them together like that," and snaps his fingers. So perhaps George W. Bush should heed the words of a 13-year-old schoolgirl who attends one of those Bechtel-renovated schools, with new equipment supplied by the U.S. government. "In the old days they would have made me carry a bag with Saddam's face on it," she told her uncle, an Iraqi translator. "Now they're making me carry one with an American flag." The child resents it, her uncle says. And that should hardly surprise any red-blooded American. The United States wants a free Iraq? Well, then, it should free the Iraqis to do what they can do best.

In "The $87 Billion Money Pit" (Nov. 3), we mention Babcock Power, a subcontractor of Siemens. The full name of the company is Babcock Borsig Power Services GmbH. It should not be confused with Babcock Power Inc., an unrelated company that is not on the ground in Iraq.

WITH CHRISTIAN CARYL, BABAK DEHGHANPISHEH AND PEYMAN PEJMAN IN BAGHDAD

© 2003