Krauthammer -- on target again

Charles Krauthammer pins down some good perspetive in Everyone's an expert. The reconstruction of Iraq is going amazingly fast. Oil production is at 1.6 million barrels a day, more than three-quarters of 2002 production levels. There is no hunger, disease, or refugee problem.

One primary reason that reconstructing Iraq government, business, and social systems is going much faster than any historical precedent (e.g., Germany or Japan) is that the military campaign was remarkably precise -- leaving most things intact. If you travel through many cities in Germany, by comparison, there is precious little pre-1945 construction remaining, certainly nothing industrial.