A good piece with fair criticism.

The problem has been rebuilding Iraq'a economy, and the administration's earlier attempts to try to apply to Iraq the kind of economic reforrs that might (let me emphasize "might") be necessary in the US has certainly been a mistaken policy.

The news here is that W.'s team has finally realized some of their mistakes in this area to some limited degreet, and finally begun to put Iraqis back to work. Iraqis are like any other people, and they can do most jobs - you don't need to bring in US contractors to do them. Besides rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure, there are a lot of innocent civilians in Iraq who haved had their homes and businesses destroyed as a result of combat. Some massive effort should be underway right now to attempt to make these people "whole" again.

I hope that this is not a case of too little too late. The administration needs to be doing a lot more of this, and doing it quickly. If a person is working, they are less likely to turn to "insurgency". As W. pu it, in Iraq "mistakes were made", but those mistaskes have cost a lot of soldiers' their lives and health. Perhaps the Congress will show some guts and hold hearings on why W.'s team failed to spend the money they gave them to rebuild Iraq. After all, its called the "executive" branch because it excutes (carries out) the laws of the legislative branch. In the meantime, as more of our soldiers get killed, excuse me for ranting about the "DC lobbyists".