Iraq's ministries struggle to serve

[Career Prole]

From Christian Science Monitor...

<snip>

Two years since the US started spending hundreds of millions on Iraqi healthcare, the country's health ministry is plagued by shortages and corruption that marked Saddam Hussein's rule, say health professionals and officials.

<snip>

"From day to day, the situation is getting worse, but it should be getting better," says Luay Farhan, head of the emergency ward at Yarmouk, which receives scores of cases from attacks every day. "We hear every , but we do not see anything. There is stealing from this ministry, starting with the highest people."

<snip>

A further burden on the new health minister, Abdel Mutalib Mohammad, and the other newly appointed heads of the Iraqi bureaucracy, is endemic corruption, which some estimate to be as high as 70 percent.

"That's a very high figure," says Shakir al-Ainachy, chief of operations for the health ministry. "You can see that services are not improving well ... there is definitely a negative impact."

<snip>

That impact is being felt across the board, according to a study of living conditions in Iraq in 2004, released Thursday by the Ministry of Planning and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). The survey of 21,668 households found that many vital statistics have hardly changed since the Hussein era. Almost a quarter of children under five are chronically malnourished; pediatricians say that infant mortality remains among the highest, at 40 per 1,000 live births.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0513/p06s01-woiq.html

Hey, spin this, Scotty!

[MichiganVote]

1. It's all an exercise to test the Iraqi's love of theft

[Career Prole]

2. You might be on to something there!

I should check with an Iraqi language expert.
Maybe that government shrub installed is hearing his speeches about "freedom-loving people" and "freedom is a gift from God" and "freedom is on the march", and understanding it to mean "Take what you want...it's all free!" :bounce:

[MichiganVote]

3. It's called looting the US voters. Might as well pick our pockets