The city of mosques is now the city of ruins. Rebuilding may take a while because despite claims that the fighting was over (sound familiar?) it somehow continues. I am often very critical of international aid programs because they rely too often on local institutions to hand out the money, which all too often means that friends and well connected people get the biggest and the best and considering the existing problems of bribery and favoritism in Iraq I suspect the rebuilding effort will be equally spotty, whenever it can actually get moving. Perhaps this is an early sign of our mis-management of the situation and what we have to look forward to in the city of rubble:
...he was handed a white bag filled with candy and snacks and a microwaveable meal, even though the city's electricity was cut more than a week ago.
