Katya Adler (BBC): Donors' summit fails to convince

[Jack Rabbit]

From the BBC Online
Dated Friday October 24 18:02 GMT (11:02 am PDT)

Donors' summit fails to convince
By Katya Adler
BBC correspondent in Madrid

The conference had been billed as a disaster and opened to extremely low expectations.
Right up until the last minute, few countries had confirmed their delegations and many had expressed very strong reservations about pledging money to Iraq in its current state.
The pace of political change is slow, there is ongoing violent unrest and a lack of transparency about which country or multi-lateral organisation would handle and distribute donated funds remains.
In the end though, despite the gloomy expectations, governments and international agencies have pledged billions of dollars in aid and loans to help get Iraq back on its feet.
But the final total has still come in considerably below the amount originally hoped-for.

Chalk up another diplomatic disaster for the Bushies.

The Iraqi people will suffer, but who can blame the doners from being stingy? What assurances are there that the money pledged will be used for the benefit of the Iraqi if it is to be administered by the most crooked government in US history?

[PATRICK]

1. But our newspapers

trumpeted the headline news as Bush's victory over the UN, their submission! These were the same genuises who were cynically sure the Europeans would jump on board the war wagon as the weak opportunistic hypocrites they were.

The US so doesn't get it we will likely be taken to the cleaners by these "submissive" Old Country types.