When there is a thread about Trump upcoming quagmires, some people/posters suggest that the cost could very be well kept down by slashing down the costs of reconstruction.
In Iraq (like, to be honest, most colonial-type conflicts) making an exact distinction between ''occupation'' and ''reconstruction'' is haphazard as the former require the later...but like in most of those conflicts, the mere necessity of paying ''the grocery bills'' (a French Canadian expression for ''the running expenses'', the day to day expenses) led to actually pretty paltry amounts for reconstruction-maybe 60 billions. Which was not spent very well.
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-i...numbers-2014-6
As for the Iraqi army, 25-26 billion for rebuilding it seems a HUGE expense considering the results...but as it was 26 billions for training 600 000 army and security forces over 10 years (with maybe twice that amount from the Iraqi government, who was not actually paying), the results were not that surprising (subcontracting the formation to PMC was a brilliant idea, too)
https://www.juancole.com/2016/01/the...gon-style.html
TLDR : the Iraqi reconstruction was a dismal failure of 75 billion, but it's worth wondering if there was vastly different possible outcome with such a sum (a widely quoted figure is that a US soldier cost in the US 100 000 per year and up to 800 000 deployed...it's not that surprising that motivation, training and the like are poor for the Iraqi military, whose budget for ten year and at least 600 000 perosnnel is markedly inferior to the expenses for the Canadian armed forces (60 000) for a single year...)
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FTR, this is not a ''lulz American'' thing. Both in Indochina and Algeria, the war ended up costing so much for France that there was almost nothing left for reconstruction proper. It's a vicious circle : you need to have boots on the ground to control the area, but they cost so much that the reconstruction they are supposed to supervise is rather wonky
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And to that there is the absolute and abject quagmire of subcontracting reconstruction to PMCs and various groups....