Good News From Iraq

Rowan Scarborough has a great piece today detailing the plan for construction in Iraq:

Last year, officials told reporters that the way to beat the insurgents was to start so many projects that the vast majority would get completed. The equation was, too many targets, too few saboteurs. Mr. Bolton said yesterday that the PCO nearly has surpassed 2,000 construction starts, which is more than two-thirds of all planned starts. "The pace of reconstruction spending or disbursements -- paying for work that's been done, has more than doubled in the last 51/2 months," Mr. Bolton said. Another official said construction starts stand at 1,955, with 582 completed. The Bush administration last year was criticized by both Democratic and Republican lawmakers for the slow pace in handing out the reconstruction contracts. Along with creating the burgeoning Iraqi security force, reconstruction is considered a vital part of a strategy to put Iraq back on its economic feet and allow 140,000 American troops to leave.

This sounds smart. Once citizens are used to having steady utilities, the loss of those utilities due to sabotage by the insurgents will only lead to animosity toward the insurgents.

Update: Jack has mcuh more over at Tigerhawk.

Update: Who does the Arab world hold up as supporter of Iran? Why no other than Bill Clinton:

But who are “the guys” Clinton identifies with?
There is, of course, President Muhammad Khatami who, speaking at a conference of provincial governors last week, called for the whole world to convert to Islam.
“Human beings understand different affairs within the global framework that they live in,” he said. “But when we say that Islam belongs to all times and places, it is implied that the very essence of Islam is such that despite changes (in time and place) it is always valid.”
There is also Khatami’s brother, Muhammad-Reza, the man who, in 1979, led the “students” who seized the US Embassy in Tehran and held its diplomats hostage for 444 days. There is Massumeh Ebtekar, a poor man’s pasionaria who was spokesperson for the hostage-holders in Tehran. There is also the late Ayatollah Sadeq Khalkhali, known to Iranians as “Judge Blood”.
Not surprisingly, Clinton’s utterances have been seized upon by the state-controlled media in Tehran as a means of countering President George W. Bush’s claim that the Islamic Republic is a tyranny that oppresses the Iranians and threatens the stability of the region.