UN: Fallujah cost nears $500 million

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20050314-034515-6754r

WASHINGTON -- The U.S.-led November assault on Fallujah and ensuing battle caused $493 million in damage to private homes, according to a new United Nations report.

The Iraqi government has promised $103 million for the rebuilding of Fallujah. The United States has also promised around $100 million. snip

According to the United Nations, nearly 60,000 families were displaced from Fallujah when the three-week battle to oust an entrenched insurgency began in November. Most families remain displaced as housing, sewage and electricity has not yet been fully restored.

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[leftchick]

1. somebody is fudging numbers here....

Fallujah used to be a city of 300,00+ citizens. Only about 9000 have returned. wtf is with the 60,000 displaced?? Are the rest of them dead?

[NNN0LHI]

2. Key word is "families" n/t

[skids]

3. 60,000 families.

...not individuals.

[Desertrose]

4. and that pricetag sounds on the low side to me

yup...those numbers just don't add up...oh wait , doesn't the chimperator-in-chief use NEW MATH?

[Robbien]

5. 60,000 homes at a little less than $10,000 a piece

not to mention streets, sanitation, and utilities.

and their mosques are gone also along with all public buildings.

$500,000 is quite a bit low.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

6. The pricetag quoted...

...appears to be for damage to homes only.

[Robbien]

8. Since all work done in Iraq is contracted out to foreign companies

how in the heck would anyone expect to have a house rebuilt for less than $l0,000? Plus you have to expect 30-40% of the amount pledged will be siphoned away in graft by the sub-contracters.

We broke it and are only pledging $100,000 to re-build. What a farce.

[htuttle]

7. Recent Juan Cole report on Fallujah

http://www.juancole.com/2005/03/fallujah-tent-city-awaits-compensation.html

Readers often write in for an update on Fallujah. I am sorry to say that there is no Fallujah to update. The city appears to be in ruins and perhaps uninhabitable in the near future. Of 300,000 residents, only about 9,000 seem to have returned, and apparently some of those are living in tents above the ruins of their homes. The rest of the Fallujans are scattered in refugee camps of hastily erected tents at several sites, including one near Habbaniyyah, or are staying with relatives in other cities, including Baghdad.

The scale of this human tragedy-- the dispossession and displacement of 300,000 persons-- is hard to imagine. Unlike the victims of the tsunami who were left homeless, moreover, the Fallujans have witnessed no outpouring of world sympathy. While there were undeniably bad characters in the city, most residents had done nothing wrong and did not deserve to be made object lessons--which was the point Rumsfeld was making with this assault. He hoped to convince Ramadi and Mosul to fall quiet lest the same thing happen to them. He failed, since the second Fallujah campaign threw the Sunni Arab heartland into much more chaos than ever before. People forget how quiet Mosul had been. And, the campaign was the death knell for proper Sunni participation in the Jan. 30 elections (Sunnis, with 20 percent of the population, have only 6 seats in the 275 member parliament).

However much a cliche it might be to say it, the US military really did destroy Fallujah to save it.

(was posted here the other day, but bears reposting)

[ananda]

9. exactly

There is no Falluja left.

It will have to be rebuilt from scratch, and that will cost far more than 500 million... notwithstanding the cost in lives.

Sue

[anarchy1999]

10. IMHO, my prediction, Fallujah will never be "rebuilt". It will be left

as it is for testimony and as a monument. I just wish I had not said what I said in April of 2003. I told my husband after the 1st incident, when our soldiers shot into the "protestors" wanting our "soldiers" to quit their occupation of the school, that they would level this town before it was over.

Damn them all! And yes, I support our soldiers only in bringing them home and if they stand up and quit this illegal "war on terror".

[leftchick]

13. no way...

it will never be rebuilt along with the rest of the uS destruction in Iraq. Except of course anything to do with OIL.

[Just Me]

11. NeoCON imperial "pacification" at its destructive height.

:cry:

If only the American people really knew what has taken place and the true motivations behind such destruction. If only Americans really knew.

:cry:

[anarchy1999]

12. We will all get to know soon enough. Just wait another year.

That's when all the "mysterious" illnesses will really start showing up along with all the PTS Disordered individuals are home.

Video Games anyone? No, I believe we will have a new definition of "going postal". But that just me and what I believe is going to come with all the yellow ribbons, "support the troops", "with us or against us", cut benefits mentality of these criminals. That is what "they" are and "they" have committed(sp?) high crimes and treason, there is no question and no debate, just a lot of facts. The rest of the world knows it, Americans don't, too much TV and fun.

[lumpy]

14. Bushco should kick

in some bucks for the damage that has been done. They started it...
Dubya and his minions must have some loose bucks laying around.

[underpants]

15. Wow them is some esspensive tents

Shameful.

[Name removed]

16. Deleted message

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[maxsolomon]

18. i sure hope that's sarcasm

fallujah was an example to the sunni populace, and by extension to the shiites. as in: we can do this any time we want, & despite what you were told about "american cowardice" in lebanon & somalia, we have the same will to brutalize that hussein did.

and it has worked, largely. outside of ramadi i don't believe there is mass, open sunni resistance the way that there was in fallujah. its all hit & run guerilla action now.

not that that is morally acceptable.

correct me if i'm wrong.

[Name removed]

20. Deleted message

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[daleo]

17. 500 million for 60 thousand families

That's about 8300 per family, which works out to maybe 1500 to 2000 per person. Not much, for having your city destroyed. And Bushco is only footing one-fifth of that, or about $400 per person. That's maybe a week in a half decent hotel in North America, 3 days in a good one.

[VegasWolf]

19. Meanwhile, poor people and children starve to death in Boosh's America.