All the US reconstruction funding for Iraq, all $18 billion, has now been spent or committed and there will be no more. What sticks out, though, in the light of the great pay-for-play journalism affair, is this:
“It is easy for the Americans to say, ‘We are doing reconstruction in Iraq,’ and we hear that. But to make us believe it, they should show us where this reconstruction is,” said Mustafa Sidqi Murthada, owner of a men’s clothing store in Baghdad. “Maybe they are doing this reconstruction for them in the Green Zone. But this is not for the Iraqis.”
So what was all that superspook propaganda for, then?
Edit: More importantly, I suppose this means that the “build” bit of all that “clear, hold and build” stuff is now an inoperative portion of that statement.