DebateGate

Three years later: Insecurity, instability and hope in Iraq

Editor's note: One of CNN's Iraqi producers writes about the atmosphere in Iraq three years after March 20, 2003, the start of the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. The name of the writer has been withheld due to security concerns.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Every day when I wake up in the morning, before having breakfast, I call my two married sisters who live in different neighborhoods. I call them for one simple reason: To make sure they're OK.

"We heard some explosions and gunfire yesterday night but we are all fine, how about you?" my older sister asked me the other day over the phone.

I live with my parents in northern Baghdad, in a mixed neighborhood of Sunnis and Shiites. We've lived in this neighborhood for 15 years, side by side, Sunnis, Shiites and some Kurds. Before, we didn't know who was a Sunni, who was a Shiite. Now, it seems it's all we know.

Everyone in my family has a mobile phone. This way we can always be in touch. Always check in with each other. It's essential because nobody can ever predict what's going to happen on any given day in Iraq. When I leave in the morning, I never know if we will all be back at home that night.

To get to work, it takes 15 minutes from my house, but that's on a good day. There is almost always traffic, convoys and checkpoints.

But that isn't the worst part. Instead, the bigger fear is roadside bombs, car bombs and suicide bombs that explode -- many times targeting U.S. and Iraqi forces, but instead killing civilians. And then there are the insurgent attacks on government convoys and drive-by shootings that leave innocent bystanders dead or wounded.

I usually get a ride to work from my younger brother. But on days when I'm worried about attacks, I find my own way. If something happens, I don't want my brother to get hurt. In those cases, I usually take the bus. Not the easiest way to get to work, but the other day it gave me a chance to find out what is going through other Iraqis' minds.

Was it better under Saddam?
As I rode on the bus, most people started out quiet, but within minutes the silence was broken.

"Look! I cannot believe this could happen to us," an old man said pointing his finger at a line of cars that stretched for more than a kilometer outside a gas station -- amazed that an oil-rich country is dealing with an oil crisis for its own people.

"Habibi (my dear), our oil is being stolen by the Americans and the new Iraqi government. What oil are you talking about?" another man replied.

It's not a view shared by most in Iraq, but it is a view that some hold.

Across the aisle, an old woman who sat quietly listening to the exchange in a simple manner brought the debate to an end. "We do not want anything but to live in Iraq safely."

Iraqis often speak of fuel shortages, a lack of electricity, the void in stability, all the things that deeply affect their daily life. Some also speak of the past.

"Life was much better under Saddam," one man said from the back of the bus.

But he couldn't finish the sentence. An angry man at the other end of the bus, turned around and yelled, "What was better under Saddam? Give me one example. Are you talking about the wars Saddam put us through? Or the mass graves that he created during his era? Or the torture centers? Tell me one thing that was better under Saddam and I will applaud you."

As we approach the third anniversary since the fall of that towering statue of Saddam Hussein in Firdos Square in central Baghdad, there are many who have no desire to look back.

"Let's not talk about life under Saddam because it has gone away with the past. Now we have a new life, a new political process and a new government," chimed in a young man sitting in the front next to the driver.

Every Iraqi has a story to tell
Everything in Iraq is new, from the government to the violence. But all of it is rife with constant difficulties. For Iraqis, patience is wearing thin.

Eleven of us were on the bus that day -- everybody giving a different opinion about the current situation. Some criticized the Iraqi government, others the United States, and some blamed Saddam loyalists. And, of course, many blamed the terrorists who kill Iraqis daily.

Listening to the exchange was remarkable because it never could have happened under Saddam. Before the war, nobody could voice frustration or anger.

There was no free press to question politicians. Now, when there is so much to talk about, we can finally exercise that right. Whether riding the bus or sitting at restaurants, talking freely has become part of the atmosphere everywhere.

Every Iraqi has a story to tell. And sitting on the bus I couldn't help but think of mine. I remembered my friend Hussam, who died a few months ago when gunmen killed him near his home for no reason.

I remembered the car bomb that exploded near my house a few days ago wounding three people I know. I remembered the incident that happened a few weeks ago when, while working on a story, I was surrounded and beaten by gunmen because I was a journalist.

My story didn't start after the war. It started as a child under Saddam. I remember that, in my early 20s, I was sent to a prison for a month and tortured because I did a report on Iraqi TV showing an American flag.

For Iraqis in Baghdad, there is one thing that more than anything else concerns us. "It never happened before, Sunni killing Shiite and Shiite killing Sunni," said the man who described life being better under Saddam.

We all wonder if Iraq will descend into a civil war, especially after hundreds of Iraqis died in just a few weeks after the bombing of the Shiite golden dome in Samara.

"Who said that they are Iraqis that bombed the shrine? I believe they are terrorists who came from abroad to create strife among Iraqis because Sunnis and Shiite lived together in peace for hundreds of years," the same man said.

No looking back
After 30 minutes, I finally reached my destination. Before the bus stopped, I turned and asked everyone if they have any hope for the future. Four of the 11 said, "Inshallah," Arabic for, "If God wills it." The others kept silent.

I understand their silence. It's hard for Iraqis to predict what will happen in the coming years. The situation here is complicated. Most of my friends voice hope, they share my view that at least we are past the Saddam era. Under Saddam, I felt like I just went through the motions. I felt dead inside, with no hope that I would ever see him gone and no future while he was in power.

But now before my eyes, I am seeing my people killed. We never expected to live through an era of such fear and anxiety. I cannot accept what is happening now, but still I do not want to turn back.

I remember one day when my mother was watching news on local TV as they showed the aftermath of an explosion that missed a joint U.S. and Iraqi military convoy, but killed two nearby children.

Tears ran down her face, as she cried in silence. I approached her, hugged her shoulder and asked her in this moment as she sat there crying, "Hey Mom, if you could return to the days before the war, would you?"

She looked at me for a while -- and still crying, shook her head slowly and said, "No."

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/03/17/iraq.anniversary/index.html?eref=yahoo

Another Massive Anti-Chavez Protest in Caracas

Amazing!
It was the largest protest in Venezuelan history!

That would mean, since Chavez blocked the roads going into the city, that 1 of every 3 or 4 in Caracas made it to the protest!

Supporters of Venezuela's opposition leader Manuel Rosales wave the national flag during a campaign rally in Caracas, Venezuela, Saturday, Nov. 25, 2006. (AP)


http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2006/11/another-massive-anti-chavez-protest-in.html

Success of Drug Plan Challenges Democrats
Medicare Benefit's Cost Beat Estimates

By Lori Montgomery and Christopher Lee
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, November 26, 2006; A01



It sounded simple enough on the campaign trail: Free the government to negotiate lower drug prices and use the savings to plug a big gap in Medicare's new prescription-drug benefit. But as Democrats prepare to take control of Congress, they are struggling to keep that promise without wrecking a program that has proven cheaper and more popular than anyone imagined.

House Democrats have vowed to act quickly after taking power in January to lift a ban on Medicare negotiations with drugmakers, which they hope will save as much as $190 billion over a decade. But House leaders have yet to settle on a strategy and acknowledge that negotiation is, in any case, unlikely to generate sufficient savings to fill the "doughnut hole," the much-criticized gap in coverage that forces millions of seniors to pay 100 percent of drug costs for a few weeks or months each year.

Drug-company lobbyists, Bush administration officials and many congressional Republicans are preparing to block any effort to increase federal control over drug prices, saying the Medicare benefit is working well. They contend that instead of saving money, government negotiations could raise drug prices for all consumers while limiting choices for people on Medicare.

"This is going to be much more of a morass than people think," said Marilyn Moon, director of the health program at the American Institutes for Research and a former trustee of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. Negotiating drug prices is "a feel-good kind of answer, but it's not one that is easy to imagine how you put into practice."

The Medicare drug benefit, one of the Bush administration's signature domestic programs, was created in 2003 and took effect in January. It has enrolled 22.5 million seniors, some of whom had no previous drug coverage.

Polls indicate that more than 80 percent of enrollees are satisfied, even though nearly half chose plans with no coverage in the doughnut hole, a gap that opens when a senior's drug costs reach $2,250 and closes when out-of-pocket expenses reach $3,600. By the latest estimates, 3 million to 4 million seniors will hit the doughnut hole this year and pay full price for drugs while also paying drug-plan premiums.

The cost of the program has been lower than expected, about $26 billion in 2006, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The cost was projected to rise to $45 billion next year, but Medicare has received new bids indicating that its average per-person subsidy could drop by 15 percent in 2007, to $79.90 a month.

Urban Institute President Robert D. Reischauer, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office, called that a remarkable record for a new federal program.

Initially, he said, people were worried no private plans would participate. "Then too many plans came forward," Reischauer said. "Then people said it's going to cost a fortune. And the price came in lower than anybody thought. Then people like me said they're low-balling the prices the first year and they'll jack up the rates down the line. And, lo and behold, the prices fell again. And the reaction was, 'We've got to have the government negotiate lower prices.' At some point you have to ask: What are we looking for here?"

Republicans contend that Democrats were looking for a campaign issue.

In the Nov. 7 elections, public anger over the doughnut hole helped many Democratic candidates, who pointed to the ban on government negotiations and accused Republicans of selling out to the pharmaceutical industry.

Republicans, by and large, did a poor job of defending the program, said Thomas A. Scully, a Republican and the former head of the federal unit that runs Medicare. He played a key role in creating the drug benefit.

"Black voters, poor voters -- people who generally vote Democratic -- they got the biggest benefit in 40 years and nobody told them that," Scully said.

According to those involved in the 2003 negotiations, even some Democratic bills to create a Medicare drug benefit included a ban on direct government negotiations. The reason: Seniors purchase half of all prescription drugs. The drug industry argued that a government program representing seniors would not negotiate prices, it would set them.

If government price controls were effective, the theory goes, they could significantly lower drug-company profits and discourage medical innovation. If price controls were not effective, they could drive prices higher. If companies were required to sell to Medicare at 15 percent off the average wholesale price, for example, they might just raise the wholesale price.

"At the extreme, if everybody gets a discount, then nobody does," said Mark B. McClellan, who took over from Scully in running Medicare and recently left the job.

Proponents say the program, as it now operates, avoids that problem by relying on dozens of private insurers, which bid to offer coverage to Medicare recipients. Some offer low premiums and lots of generic drugs, while others have high premiums but offer brand-name drugs and full doughnut-hole coverage. Medicare averages the bids and sets a per-person subsidy. Pressure falls on the insurers to negotiate the best drug prices.

Consumer advocates contend that if Medicare were permitted to negotiate prices, its purchasing power would produce drug discounts similar to those obtained by the Veterans Affairs Department, which covers 4.4 million people. As it is, Medicare prices are significantly higher than VA prices, according to Families USA, a nonprofit association of health-care consumers that analyzed 20 drugs commonly prescribed to seniors.

Even Medicaid, the federal health program for the poor, appears to employ better negotiators than the private Medicare plans. On Jan. 1, 6 million elderly and disabled people were switched from Medicaid pharmacy plans to the new Medicare program. Overnight, many drugmakers began selling the same drugs at higher prices. Pfizer, for example, reported saving $325 million in Medicaid discounts during the first six months of this year "due primarily to the impact of" the Medicare drug benefit, according to a company report to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

"At some point, someone has to stand up to these industries that are doing so well in this program," said Robert M. Hayes, president of the Medicare Rights Center, a New York advocacy group. "It only makes sense that if the industries do less well, the taxpayers and the consumers will do better."

Medicare officials say it's not fair to compare their prices with those of Medicaid and Veterans Affairs, which do not reflect certain overhead costs in their drug prices and offer a limited number of drugs. Limiting choice would be unacceptable to many Medicare beneficiaries, said Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), outgoing chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. "I don't think seniors want the government in their medicine cabinets," he said.

For now, it is not clear how aggressively Democrats are willing to push price negotiation. Ideas range from simply repealing the ban on negotiations -- which would accomplish little if the Bush administration refuses to negotiate -- to creating a separate, government-run Medicare drug program with strong negotiating power.

Rep. Fortney "Pete" Stark (D-Calif.), who is in line to become chairman of a key health subcommittee, said he prefers a middle path, with Medicare setting ceilings from which private insurers could negotiate downward.

But Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), the incoming Senate Finance chairman, is cool to the idea of government negotiation, and has committed only to holding hearings to "determine what the result would be of eliminating" the no-negotiation clause.

W.J. "Billy" Tauzin, president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said the drug lobby will "aggressively defend" the current plan. But John C. Rother, policy director for AARP, the powerful lobby for elderly Americans, said he has no doubt that the next Congress will give government some role in negotiating Medicare drug prices.

"This is an idea that's favored by 90 percent of the American public," Rother said. "It's not like you have to convince the American public that this is a good idea."

Staff writer Amy Goldstein contributed to this report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/25/AR2006112500919_pf.html

Before - and After - Iraq
By Victor Davis Hanson

"Our own successful three-week war, but their failed three-year peace."

Such a self-serving disclaimer might best sum up the change of heart of several neoconservative former supporters of the Iraq war - at least according to interviews that appear in the current issues of Vanity Fair and the New Yorker magazines.

Some of these pundits and policy gurus now having second and third thoughts had called for the American ouster of Saddam Hussein as early as 1998. These days, apparently in hindsight, they question whether the present plagued occupation even justified the effective three-week war of 2003.

Americans themselves have made the same dramatic about-face. They once approved of the war by a 70 percent majority. Three years later, they think it was a mistake by almost the same wide margin. Like the pundits, the public follows the pulse of the battlefield - which now seems to be reported solely as a story of improvised explosive devices and sectarian suicide bombing.

But forget that "gotcha" Beltway buzz. Instead, let's re-examine the now-orphaned policy of bringing democracy to the Middle East - not the fickle parents who abandoned it. How, in other words, did we get to Iraq?

Taking out Saddam Hussein was not dreamed up - as is sometimes alleged - by sneaky supporters of Israel. Nor did oil-hungry CEOs or Halliburton puppeteers pull strings in the shadows to get us in. And the go-ahead wasn't given merely on the strength of trumped-up fears of weapons of mass destruction: The U.S. Congress authorized the war on 23 diverse counts, from Iraq's violation of the 1991 armistice to its record of giving both money and sanctuary to terrorists.

George W. Bush resolved to democratize Iraq also as a way to confront three grim facts of our recent past.

First, the United States had been far too friendly with atrocious regimes in the Middle East. And when bloodletting inevitably broke out, either internally or between aggressive regimes, too often we cynically played one side off the other. Or we backed repugnant insurgents, with little thought of the "blowback" that would result. We outsourced sophisticated arms and training to radical Islamists fighting against the Soviet-backed Afghan government. We hoped the murderous Saddam might check the murderous Iranian theocracy - and then again sold arms to the mullahs during the Iran-Contra affair.

We breezily called for an uprising of Shiites and Kurds only to abandon them to be slaughtered by Saddam after the first Gulf War. We cynically gave the Mubarak dynasty of Egypt billions in protection money to behave. While we thought we were achieving short-term expediency, American policy only increased long-term instability by not pressuring these tyrants to reform failed governments.

Second, at key moments in the 1980s and '90s, the United States signaled that it would appease its terrorist enemies rather than engage in the difficult work of uprooting them. We did little other than file an indictment or shoot a missile at the killers who murdered American citizens, diplomats and soldiers in East Africa, Lebanon, New York City, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Leaving Lebanon, scurrying out of Somalia, and continually flying through Saddam's skies for 12 long years without removing him only cemented the image of an uncertain America.

Third, September 11 changed the way the U.S. looked at the status quo in the Middle East. That attack was the work of terrorists who were enabled by our autocratic clients in the Middle East, and emboldened by our previous inaction. In response, Iraq was an effort to end both the cynical realism and the convenient appeasement of the past - and so to address the much larger problems of the Middle East that, if left alone, could lead to another large-scale terrorist attack in the United States.

Whatever one thinks of our mistakes after Saddam was toppled, those three facts remain central to American foreign policy. Saudi subsidies to jihadists, Pakistani sanctuary for them, and Egyptian propaganda are all symptoms of these dictatorships hedging their bets - hoping their bought terrorists don't turn on them for their own failures and illegitimacy.

Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri will still connive to bring the new caliphate to Afghanistan, Iraq and beyond. And they won't be stopped by either cruise missiles or court subpoenas, but only by a resolute United States and Middle Eastern societies that elect their own leaders and live with the results.

We can demonize President Bush and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld all we want, or wish they presented their views in a kindlier and more artful fashion. We can wish that the United States were better at training Iraqis and killing terrorists to secure Iraq. But the same general mess in the Middle East will still confront Bush's and Rumsfeld's successors.

And long after the present furor over Iraq dies down, the idea of trying to help democratic reformers fight terrorists, and to distance America from failed regimes that are antithetical to our values, simply will not go away.

That tough idealism will stay - because in the end it is the only right and smart thing to do.

Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and author, most recently, of "A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War." You can reach him by e-mailing author@victorhanson.com.
(C) 2006 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

Page Printed from: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/11/before_and_after_iraq.html at November 23, 2006 - 10:34:32 PM CST

Lieberman refuses to close door on switching parties
November 12, 2006

HARTFORD, Conn. --Sen. Joe Lieberman on Sunday repeated his pledge to caucus with Senate Democrats when the 110th Congress convenes in January, but refused to slam the door on possibly moving to the Republican side of the aisle.

Asked on NBC's "Meet the Press" if he might follow the example of Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont, who left the Republicans in 2001 and became an independent, ending Republican control of the U.S. Senate, Lieberman refused to discount the possibility.

"I'm not ruling it out but I hope I don't get to that point," he said. "And I must say -- and with all respect to the Republicans who supported me in Connecticut -- nobody ever said, 'We're doing this because we want you to switch over. We want you to do what you think is right and good for our state and country,' and I appreciate that."

A spokeswoman for Lieberman would not elaborate when contacted by The Associated Press.

Greenwich businessman Ned Lamont defeated Lieberman in the Democratic primary in August. Lieberman was elected to a fourth term last Tuesday as an independent, and said Sunday his political affiliation will be as an "Independent Democrat."

The Democrats won control of the Senate with 51 seats. Lieberman and newly elected Bernie Sanders of Vermont are the Senate's only Independents.

A switch to the Republicans would bring the Senate to a 50-50 division, giving Republican Vice President Dick Cheney opportunities to break tie votes.

Jeffords' decision to quit the GOP and become an independent tipped the balance of an evenly divided Senate, handing control to the Democrats with a one-vote margin.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/connecticut/articles/2006/11/12/lieberman_refuses_to_close_door_on_switching_parties?mode=PF

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U.S. Jobs Shape Condoms’ Role in Foreign Aid
By CELIA W. DUGGER
EUFAULA, Alabama — Here in this courtly, antebellum town, Alabama’s condom production has survived an onslaught of Asian competition, thanks to the patronage of straitlaced congressmen from this Bible Belt state.

Behind the scenes, the politicians have ensured that companies in Alabama won federal contracts to make billions of condoms over the years for AIDS prevention and family planning programs overseas, though Asian factories could do the job at less than half the cost.

In recent years, the state’s condom manufacturers fell hundreds of millions of condoms behind on orders, and the federal aid agency began buying them from Asia. The use of Asian-made condoms has contributed to layoffs that are coming next month.

But Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama, has quietly pressed to maintain the unqualified priority for American-made condoms and is likely to prevail if the past is any guide.

“What’s wrong with helping the American worker at the same time we are helping people around the world?” asked the senator’s spokesman, Michael Brumas.

That question goes to the heart of an intensifying debate among wealthy nations about to what degree foreign aid is about saving jobs at home or lives abroad.

Britain, Ireland and Norway have all sought to make aid more cost effective by opening contracts in their programs to fight global poverty to international competition. The United States, meanwhile, continues to restrict bidding on billions of dollars worth of business to companies operating in America, and not just those that make condoms.

The wheat to feed the starving must be grown in United States and shipped to Africa, enriching agribusiness giants like Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill. The American consulting firms that carry out antipoverty programs abroad — dubbed beltway bandits by critics — do work that some advocates say local groups in developing countries could often manage at far less cost.

The history of the federal government’s condom purchases embodies the tradeoffs that characterize foreign aid American-style. Alabama’s congressmen have long preserved several hundred factory jobs here by insisting that the United States Agency for International Development buy condoms made here, though, probably in a nod to their conservative constituencies, most have typically done so discreetly.

Those who favor tying aid to domestic interests say that it not only preserves jobs and supports American companies, but helps ensure broad political support for foreign aid, which is not always popular.

On the other hand, skepticism of foreign aid is frequently rooted in the perception that the money is not well spent. Blame often falls on corrupt leaders in poor countries, but aid from rich nations with restrictions requiring it to be spent in the donor country can also reduce effectiveness.

The United States government, the world’s largest donor of condoms, has bought more than nine billion condoms over the past two decades. Under President Bush’s global AIDS plan, which dedicates billions of dollars to fight the epidemic, a third of the money for prevention must go to promoting abstinence. But that leaves two-thirds for other programs, so the federal government’s distribution of condoms has risen, to over 400 million a year.

Over the years, Usaid could have afforded even more condoms — among the most effective methods for slowing the spread of AIDS — if it had it bought them from the lowest bidders on the world market, as have the United Nations Population Fund and many other donors.

Randall L. Tobias, who heads Usaid, declined through a spokesman to be interviewed on this topic. His predecessor, Andrew Natsios, sought to weaken the hold of what he sometimes called a cartel of domestic interest groups over foreign aid. He tried, for example, to persuade Congress to allow the purchase of some African food to feed Africa’s hungry. Congress killed that proposal last year and again this year.

Hilary Benn, Britain’s secretary of state for international development, said in an interview that in 2001 his country untied its aid from requirements that only British firms could bid for international antipoverty work.

“If you untie aid, it’s 100 percent clear you’re giving aid to reduce poverty and not to benefit your own country’s commercial interests,” he said.

In recent years, most of the low-end condom business has moved to Asia, including Australia-based Ansell, which used to have plants in Alabama. American makers cannot compete with Asia on price — unless they have the federal contract.

The last American factory making condoms for Usaid sits anonymously in a pine-shaded industrial park here in Eufaula. Inside a modern, low-slung building owned by Alatech Healthcare, ingenious contraptions almost as long as a football field repeatedly dip 16,000 phallic-shaped bulbs into vats of latex, with the capacity to turn out a billion condoms a year.

The equation of need is never straightforward. Africa’s need to forestall its slow-motion catastrophe of AIDS deaths is vast. But there is need here, too.

Most of the 260 people employed at this factory and the company’s packaging plant in Slocomb are women, some the children of sharecroppers and textile factory workers, many of them struggling to support families on $7 to $8 an hour.

The most vulnerable among them — single mothers and older women with scant education — are the most fearful of foreign competition. All feel the looming threat.

“It’s cheaper, yeah,” said Lisa Jackson, 42, a worker in the packaging plant. “But we Americans should have first choice. We need our jobs to stay in America. We got to feed our families. I just wish it had never come to sending manufacturing jobs overseas.”

From 2003 to 2005, Alatech and one other company making condoms for Usaid fell behind on their orders, agency officials said. Last year, the other company went bankrupt. So Usaid ordered condoms from Asia, the first of which were shipped last year. With only a single American company still in line for the federal contract, agency officials are wary of ruling out Asian suppliers.

At such moments in the past, Alabama’s politicians have come to the rescue of the state’s condom industry. This time was no exception.

Senator Richard C. Shelby, a Republican on the Appropriations Committee, had a provision tucked into the 2004 budget bill requiring that Usaid buy only American-made condoms to the extent possible, given cost and availability. His spokeswoman, Kate Boyd, said the agency did not tell him it was worried about the relative cost of American and Asian-made condoms.

Senator Sessions wrote Usaid a letter last year saying it should purchase condoms from foreign producers only after it had bought all the condoms American companies could make, noting it was “extremely important to jobs in my state.”

Usaid assured the senator in writing that it “remains committed to prioritizing domestic suppliers.”

On the strength of that, Alatech bought the more modern Eufaula plant from its bankrupt rival. Without the government contract, the company’s president, Larry Povlacs, said, Alatech would go out of business.

In interviews, agency officials were noncommittal about whether they would halt all purchases in Asia. Condoms made there cost around 2 cents each, opposed to about 5 cents for those made here.

“At the end of the day, it’s all a political process,” Bob Lester, who recently retired after 31 years as a lawyer at Usaid, said of such decisions. “The foreign aid program has very few rabbis. Why make enemies when you don’t have to?”

Duff Gillespie, a retired senior Usaid official who is now a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, said that over the years officials at Usaid raised the prospect of foreign competition to tamp down what he called “the greed factor” of Alabama condom manufacturers.

But whenever the staff pushed to buy in Asia, Alabama politicians pushed right back.

During the Reagan years, the offices of two Alabamans, Representative William Dickinson, a Republican, and Senator Howell Heflin, a Democrat, caught wind of one such move. Mike Houston, chief of staff to Senator Heflin, recalled being tipped off by Mr. Dickinson’s chief of staff.

“He says, ‘Well, A.I.D. is going to buy condoms from Korea,’ ” Mr. Houston recalled. “ ‘The reason is they can get three condoms for the price of one that they’re paying us.’ ” Mr. Houston said he asked in amazement, “You mean we’re making rubbers in Alabama?”

The congressmen’s staffs threatened to introduce amendments to require that condoms be made in America. The agency backed off.

Further attempts to open up bidding proved fruitless. Representative Jim McDermott, a Democrat from Washington State, had seen the devastation of AIDS firsthand in the 1980s as a State Department medical officer in Africa. But he said he could not break what he called the “stranglehold” of Alabama congressmen on the condom rules.

In the mid-to-late 1990s, Representative Sonny Callahan, a Republican from Alabama, served as chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee that shaped Usaid’s budget. Brian Atwood, who headed Usaid in those years, said no administrator “in his right mind” would have tried to cut Alabama out of the condom contract at a time when many Republicans were deeply hostile to foreign aid.

Then in 2001, after decades of negotiation, the United States and other wealthy donor nations reached a nonbinding agreement to open at least some foreign aid contracts to all qualified bidders. Included were those for commodities bound for the world’s poorest nations.

Usaid decided the agreement did not apply to condoms since some went to more advanced developing countries. Alabama’s manufacturers kept the condom business once again.

William Nicol, who heads the poverty reduction division of the Development Assistance Committee at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a group of economically advanced countries, scoffed at Usaid’s interpretation. “That’s rubbish,” he said in a telephone interview.

The condom companies’ inability in recent years to fulfill Usaid’s orders accomplished what the gentleman’s agreement did not: the entry of Asian competitors.

Usaid has asked Alatech to make 201 million condoms next year, less than half of this year’s order, and ordered another 100 million made in Korea and China.

Come Nov. 15, Alatech will lay off more than half its work force. Those jobs fell victim to Usaid’s smaller orders for condoms, foreign competition and automation.

The reactions of these workers ranged from philosophical to panicked.

One, Garry Appling, a 41-year-old single mother, has worked before as a $6-an-hour cashier at Krystal, the fast food restaurant, and another at $7.15 an hour in a chicken processing plant. She said her 10-year-old daughter, Anterria, worries that she will have to go back to the chicken plant, a place so cold and wet Ms. Appling often fell ill.

But even facing her own impending job loss, Ms. Appling took a moment to empathize with the women making condoms on the other side of the world.

“We need a job — I guess they do, too,” she said, during a brief pause from feeding condoms into an intricate, rotating, whooshing machine that tested them for holes. “It’s sad.

“At the same time, the United States can’t just keep helping overseas. They’ve got to help us, too.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/29/world/29condoms.html?ei=5065&en=3044c12097b980ff&ex=1162699200&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print