World>Terrorism & Security
posted September 22, 2005 at 11:00 a.m.

Hurricanes sap support for Iraq policy

Two-thirds of Americans now say Bush is spending too much money in Iraq.

By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com

While hurricane Rita churns across the Gulf of Mexico, the residents of another Gulf region halfway across the world may be hit just as hard by its devastating effects. The Associated Press reports that devastating storms like hurricanes Katrina and Rita "have turned public attention and already-dwindling support away from President Bush's Iraq policy." One political scientist said it was as if "Osama bin Laden's running the weather."

A new AP-Ipsos poll show that support for the Bush administration's efforts in Iraq declined sharply after Katrina hit the Gulf Coast of the US. Two-thirds of Americans now say the president is spending too much money in Iraq, and AP notes, given a choice, "42 percent favor cutting spending on Iraq to pay for relief efforts on the Gulf Coast."

This comes at a time when the president's strategy enters a crucial period, with upcoming Iraqi elections in October and December that had been expected to set the stage for a military withdrawal. At least 1,907 members of the U.S. military have died in Iraq since the beginning of the war there in March 2003.
Further complicating the administration's efforts is displeasure, much of it from Republicans, over terms of the new Iraqi constitution that will be voted on Oct. 15. Drawing particular criticism are provisions restricting women's rights and emphasizing the authority of Shiite clerics.


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A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll published Monday showed that 63 percent of Americans want the immediate withdrawal of "some or all" US troops in Iraq, a jump of ten points in the weeks after Katrina.

CorpWatch, a non-profit web site that monitors corporations, reports that many Democrats and political observers are also worried that the same kind of "no bid" contracts that went to companies like Halliburton in Iraq, will go to the very same companies for the reconstrction of New Orleans

The need to rebuild New Orleans comes at a time when reconstructing Iraq is taking more time and money that the administration had originally projected, according to Tom Englehardt and Nick Turse of TomDispatch.com, a progressive opinion blog. They write in The Asia Times about the dwindling amount of money in Iraq.

In recent weeks, news has been seeping out of Iraq that the "reconstruction" of that country is petering out, because the money is largely gone. According to American officials, reported T. Christian Miller of the Los Angeles Times last week, "The US will halt construction work on some water and power plants in Iraq because it is running out of money for projects." A variety of such reconstruction projects crucial to the everyday lives of Iraqis, the British Guardian informs us, are now "grinding to a halt" as "plans to overhaul the country's infrastructure have been downsized, postponed or abandoned because the $24 billion budget approved by Congress has been dwarfed by the scale of the task."

But Reuters reports that even with Congress growing increasingly nervous about the combined costs of Iraq and Katrina relief, the Bush administration is unlikely to "change tack."

"Katrina has changed many things but I don't think it will change Iraq policy. There is almost no elasticity in that policy," said Danielle Pletka of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, an acknowledged supporter both of Bush and his Iraq policy.
Political scientist Cal Jillson of Southern Methodist University agreed. "There's no way back for Bush on Iraq. He can't run away from that policy. He has to secure something he can plausibly point to as success."

Bush, meanwhile, has started to link responses to the hurricanes and terrorism together [registration needed]. The New York Times reports that in a speech Wednesday before the Republican Jewish Coalition, Bush said, "The United States is emerging a stronger nation from both challenges, and saying that terrorists look at the storm's devastation 'and wish they had caused it.' "

Finally, the Associated Press reports that the UN World Food program warned Wednesday that it is also running out of money in Iraq. The agency, which feeds 3 million Iraqis daily, said that international donors have come up with only 44 percent of the money pledged. "Last year, a Norwegian research group, in conjunction with the United Nations and the Iraqi government, reported that malnutrition among Iraq's youngest children had nearly doubled since the US-led invasion in 2003, from 4 percent to 7.7 percent."