Because it’s run by a bunch of 20-something interns straight out of
college, or so says the Washington Post.
[url – HREF=”http://opendna.freeshell.net/mirrors/WAPOST-TheJobOpportunityOfALifetime.
htm”>mirror]

When the U.S. government went looking for people to help
rebuild Iraq, they had responded to the call. They supported the war
effort and President Bush. Many had strong Republican credentials. They
were in their twenties or early thirties and had no foreign service
experience… Viewed from the outside, their experience illustrates many
of the problems that have beset the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional
Authority (CPA), a paucity of experienced applicants, a high turnover
rate, bureaucracy, partisanship and turf wars… For months they wondered
what they had in common, how their names had come to the attention of the
Pentagon, until one day they figured it out: They had all posted their
resumes at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative-leaning think tank…
Retired U.S. Army Col. Charles Krohn said many in the CPA regard the
occupation “as a political event,” always looking for a way to make the
president look good… The group’s primary responsibility was to hand out
money. Each month, it sent out authorizations for the release of several
hundred million dollars for government employees’ salaries, reconstruction
projects and sundry other expenses… The staffers’ good will, hard
work and willingness to stay in Iraq impressed CPA representatives
from other ministries, but it did little to alter the reality that
the budget office had become a bottleneck. The U.S.-led coalition had come
seeking to establish a strong economy with high-paying jobs, functioning
factories and a rich consumer market. This was seen as the road to
democracy. Far from such lofty missions, the budget team had its hands
full just keeping things running… “The people who came were young and
keen—not necessarily the most experienced—but they were here. They
did a great job in working as hard as they could.”

Now, I’m the last to bang on someone because of their age. But were they
sleeping thru political science? Maybe they needed some more anthropology
classes thrown in.

And who the hell decided it was a good idea to have the country run by
people with no experience at all? Hasn’ t anyone heard of tele-commuting?
One more example of how BushCo fuxored things. So much for having a plan
for the post-war environment…