Latest Articles

While the Iraqi army seems to be getting up to speed, the training of the 142,000-member police force is moving more slowly and fraught with bigger problems than reports by U.S. officials might suggest. The eventual goal is to have Iraqis training all of their security forces, but private contractors expect to continue working well into 2006. One small but revealing reason says one trainer: students suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. "They are the main targets of insurgents," he says. "It makes it difficult to maintain their attention span."

Billing disputes with contractors in Iraq have sparked major questions about Pentagon reforms of the 1990s that streamlined acquisition programs but also cut down on oversight of performance and billing.

Fittingly, a government devoted to perpetual pre-emptive deconstruction now has a standing office of perpetual pre-emptive reconstruction. Gone are the days of waiting for wars to break out and drawing up plans to pick up the pieces. The White House now has an office that keeps "high risk" countries on a "watch list" and assembles teams made up of private companies, NGOs and members of thinktanks - some will have "pre-completed" contracts to rebuild countries that are not yet broken.

There is no doubt that there are profits to be made in the reconstruction business. There are massive engineering and supplies contracts; "democracy building" has exploded into a $2 billion industry; and times have never been better for public-sector consultants - the private firms that advise governments on selling off their assets, often running government services themselves as subcontractors.

For the third time in nine months, the Bush administration has redrafted its project to rebuild Iraq, The need for the reallocation of money grew not only from unanticipated security costs but also from what many experts said were flawed assumptions by Pentagon planners and Congress when they set out to pepper Iraq with large infrastructure projects built by American companies.

Following the Sept. 11 attacks, there has been more acceptance that providing nonmilitary money to foreign countries is an essential part of fighting terrorism.

The Philippines said the ban on the deployment of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) to Iraq remains in effect as it reminded foreign companies against allowing OFWs from sneaking in the war-torn country due to its dangerous peace and order situation.

Government officials on Sunday urged about 6,000 Filipino workers to immediately leave Iraq after a foiled kidnapping injured two Filipinos, stressing that the situation there remains very dangerous for foreign workers.

Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo ordered an investigation into an American firm for the illegal deployment in Iraq of five overseas Filipino workers who were almost kidnapped by armed men there Saturday.

Two Filipino workers were wounded in Iraq when armed insurgents fired on the mini bus in which they were traveling between Baghdad center and the city's airport, the Department of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.