Word: memoed
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Just how clever is Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, the intellectual godfather of the war on Iraq? The memo he signed on Dec. 5 makes you wonder. The paper fleshed out for the public who is eligible to win prime contracts, funded by $18.6 billion of U.S. tax money, to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure and supply its new army. Only firms from supportive nations can bid, which rules out those from antiwar countries like Russia, Germany, France and Canada. In its tact, timing and logic, the memo is a disaster. It was released just as the Bush Administration was launching...
...justification for the memo, such as it is, warrants setting out in full. "It is necessary for the protection of the essential security interests of the United States," writes Wolfowitz, "to limit competition for the prime contracts of those procurements to companies from the United States, Iraq, coalition partners and force-contributing nations. Therefore, it is clearly in the public interest to limit prime contracts to companies from these countries." As a logical proposition, that paragraph can be reduced to the following: Because A, therefore A--the sort of tautology that would get any high school student a failing grade...
...Tuesday’s meeting, neighbors received a draft memo outlining Harvard’s plans to minimize the negative construction impacts FAS projects will have on the neighborhood...
Bloomstein said at Tuesday’s meeting that the memo represents a draft that will be fleshed out more in the future. He said the ACID negotiators had rejected three previous drafts that he called “unacceptable...
...whether they will have a role to play in the longer term. In Washington, the Administration, as ever, seems unable to decide whether it wants international help in Iraq - say by forgiving Iraq's debts - or would rather do without it (which is one interpretation of last week's memo limiting the countries whose firms will be able to bid for prime contracts in Iraq). And the insurgency will not end overnight. Remember: asymmetric warfare is aptly named. A mere handful of terrorists can tie up large armies for years - indeed decades. Iraq is dripping with high explosives, guns...