* raises $600 (that's right, $600.00) for Iraq reconstruction!!!!

[wakemewhenitsover]

An extraordinary appeal to Americans from the Bush administration for money to help pay for the reconstruction of Iraq has raised only $600 (£337), The Observer has learnt. Yet since the appeal was launched earlier this month, donations to rebuild New Orleans have attracted hundreds of millions of dollars.

The public's reluctance to contribute much more than the cost of two iPods to the administration's attempt to offer citizens 'a further stake in building a free and prosperous Iraq' has been seized on by critics as evidence of growing ambivalence over that country.

(snip)

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1577750,00.html

[Fenris]

1. "the cost of two iPods"

Yep. At least you are guaranteed to get something out of those iPods. Can't say the same for "rebuilding" Iraq.

[wakemewhenitsover]

5. Bad news is, the iPods only play Brittney Spears.

[neuvocat]

2. When did he make this appeal exactly?

Still pretty pathetic regardless.

[NYC]

3. Iraq? He wants contributions to fund Iraq?

How many billions of our money has he already spent on Iraq? Now he wants donations?

That amazes me.

[elehhhhna]

8. When he declared Sept 11th as "Peance Freance Day" ?

[Richard D]

4. A pretty funny and weird . . .

. . . addendum to this story. It looks like that the fundraising site was rather suddenly removed today. Wonder why?

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/09/26/partnership/index.html

[wakemewhenitsover]

6. Don't want to watch brief ad. What does it say?

[Richard D]

7. Since it is only four paragraphs

Iraq? And that would be?
As we noted this morning, a British newspaper reported over the weekend that the Bush administration's Iraq Partnership -- a plan to solicit charitable donations for rebuilding Iraq -- has collected just $600 so far. In what we're sure is just a coincidence of timing, the Web site for the project has undergone some kind of extreme makeover since that rather embarrassing bit of news came out.

When we visited iraqpartnership.org this morning, we saw a headline that said, "Iraq Partnership," a come-on that said, "Donate Now: Help the Iraqi People" and a big picture of what appeared to be an Iraqi school girl looking plaintively at the camera. And you can still see that site if you look up the Google cache of it here. But if you go to iraqpartnership.org right now, what you'll see is something very different: a headline that says, "Give direct. Change the world," a pitch for supporting schoolchildren around the world and a list of charitable relief projects in a variety of different countries. One word you won't see on the front page of iraqpartnership.org right now? Iraq.

This isn't the first time this month that a Web site associated with the Bush administration has undergone a rather suspicious presto-chango routine. As we reported last week, the Food and Drug Administration seems to have scrubbed from its Web site any mention that an expert in veterinary science had been appointed to lead its Office of Women's Health. But the iraqpartnership.org change is more dramatic than that: The entire design of the page is different, and there's no hint of the original, Iraq-centric theme that was there before. We don't know what it costs to do that sort of work on such short order, but we've got a guess. And we're guessing it's more than the $600 that iraqpartnership.org is said to have raised for Iraq.

Update: Several readers have pointed out that the new version of iraqpartnership.org isn't a redesign of that page but rather a redirect to a page hosted by Global Giving. If that's right, then it probably didn't cost $600 to make the swiitch -- although, with the federal government involved, we suppose that's not impossible. The larger question a redirect presents: If iraqpartnership.org sends folks to Global Giving, what has become of the Iraq Partnership?

-- Tim Grieve

I hope this doesn't violate any laws.

[elehhhhna]

9. Uh, we gave at the OFFICE.

Fed tax withholding, if I recall correctly.

[ET Awful]

10. Well, we already authorized tens of BILLIONS to rebuild a few years

back and it was all re-routed to further destruction instead.

[npincus]

11. someone oughtta post it on the Freeper site