And a lot of other things. Such as:

• Painting schools was a propaganda operation - new paint was the last thing Iraqi schools needed, Iraq was no Afghanistan.

• The 'reconstruction' of the power generating sector was paralysed by US insistence to install US technology, rather than just buy Russian, German, French spare parts for power plants with Russian, German, French technology, technology the local engineers knew, unlike the US one.

• Generally, 'reconstruction' was handed to foreigners, Iraqi companies were left without work. Especially, in line with the free-marked fundamentalism Bremer let loose, state companies.

• And that 'reconstruction' was mostly priced to the liking of Western companies, costing up to 20 times what it would have costed if Iraqis had done it.

• Actual work done was shoddy to criminally negligent, given the lack of oversight - or worse. For example, it was reported that in Baghdad schools, not only did the new paint peel off after a few months, but the contractors took away the UNICEF-donated Japanese air conditioner and replaced it with a defect Syrian-made one.

• The total lack of care for Iraqis' health is well illustrated by the fact that Bremer let DU-shelled tanks be sold to scrap metal dealers in Baghdad, without telling them of the poisonous contamination.