Reconstruction In Iraq at a Crawl, Auditor Reports

Reconstruction In Iraq at a Crawl, Auditor Reports: "Provincial reconstruction teams, the civilian centerpiece of the Bush administration's strategy in Iraq, are making 'incremental' progress in some areas and very little in others, a government auditor told Congress yesterday. 'Improvement . . . is likely to be slow and will require years of steady engagement,' Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction , told a House panel. The teams are designed to help Iraqis build and maintain democratic institutions, provide basic services and create jobs at a local level. There are about two dozen teams spread across Iraq, each staffed with a handful to several dozen U.S. civilian and military subject experts."