Topic: The People
Admiral David Nash (retired) served as the director of the Iraq Reconstruction Management Office (IRMO) and its predecessor, the Coalition Provisional Authority's Project Management Office (PMO). IRMO and PMO were responsible for the planning and execution of the $18.4 Iraq reconstruction fund.

In the summer of 2004, Nash received the John I. Parcel - Leif J. Sverdrup Civil Engineering Management Award from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). "The award is given to an engineer of high character and professional integrity who has made a definite contribution in the field of civil engineering management." Call me nuts, but the reconstruction isn't going so well, so I'm not so sure it was a good idea to give him the award. In fact, "experts" believe the reconstruction plans were based on "flawed assumptions by Pentagon planners and Congress when they set out to pepper Iraq with large infrastructure projects built by American companies." In fact, in the State Department's recent White Paper on the effectiveness of the infrastructure reconstruction projects, reconstruction planner in Iraq admitted that significant changes had to be made to maintain the capabilities of power and waters plants recently repaired or built by the US, largely because many of them had already begun to break down and fail to operate at even their minimum capacity.

Giving Nash an award is much like giving Paul Bremer the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his work in Iraq, even though many of Bremer's actions were very questionable.