MORE "STRATEGERY"

Bad ideas keep being recycled by the Bush regime.

THEN:
The Pentagon Papers
Gravel Edition
Volume 2
Chapter 2, "The Strategic Hamlet Program, 1961-1963," pp. 128-159
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1971)

A specific strategy by which the U.S. and GVN would attempt to end the insurgency in South Vietnam had never been agreed upon at the time that the U.S. decided, late in 1961, to increase materially its assistance to GVN and to expand its advisory effort into one which would implement a "limited partnership." By early 1962, however, there was apparent consensus among the principal participants that the Strategic Hamlet Program, as it came to be called, represented the unifying concept for a strategy designed to pacify rural Vietnam (the Viet Cong's chosen battleground) and to develop support among the peasants for the central government.

A number of contributory reasons can be cited for the failure of the Strategic Hamlet Program. Over-expansion of construction and poor quality of defenses forms one category. ... Rural antagonisms which identified the program with its sponsors in the central government are more suggestive of the basis for the complete collapse as Diem and Nhu departed the scene. ... It may well be that the program was doomed from the outset because of peasant resistance to measures which changed the pattern of rural life--whether aimed at security or control.

NOW:

IRAQ: Strategic City Stabilization Initiative (SCSI)


Document Type:
Grants Notice
Funding Opportunity Number:
RFA 267-06-001
Posted Date:
Nov 30, 2005
Original Due Date for Applications:
Jan 31, 2006

The Request for Application will be issued after December 16, 2005

Estimated Total Program Funding: $1,020,000,000.00
Award Ceiling: $1,320,000,000.00

Agency Name

Agency for International Development, Overseas Missions, Iraq (CPA) USAID-Baghdad
DescriptionThe United States Agency for International Development is seeking applications for an Assistance Agreement from qualified sources to design and implement a social and economic stabilization program impacting ten Strategic Cities, identified by the United States Government as critical to the defeat of the Insurgency in Iraq. The number of Strategic Cities may expand or contract over time. USAID plans to provide approximately $1,020,000,000 over two years to meet the objectives of the Program. An additional option year may be considered amounting to $300 million at the discretion of USAID