Douglas Alexander: “The Marshall Foundation said: The idea of massive U.S. loans to individual countries had already been tried [right after…”

“The Marshall Foundation said: The idea of massive U.S. loans to individual countries had already been tried [right after World War II] (nearly $20 billion--mainly long-term low-interest loans--since the war's end) and had failed to make significant headway against Europe's social and economic problems. But there was a better idea, a different choice that someone learned from history. It was George C. Marshall. The Marshall plan was a 4-year plan, $13.3 billion, helping to rebuild the economies of 16 countries. Nearly $12 billion was grants, about $1 billion was loan, and what was the result? A continent that had been fighting itself for a thousand years became democratic, stopped fighting among themselves, and became our allies. That is why we need a 'Marshall plan' for Iraq. We need a 4- or 5- year plan for building a democracy. The Marshall plan was used for a variety of purposes. It paid for the building of railroads, water systems, medicines, modernizing factories, restoring ports to allow foreign trade, and much, much more. We should do the same in Iraq. It cost $13 billion from 1948 to 1952--more than $100 billion in today's dollars. We can learn a valuable lesson from our experiences with Germany after World War I, a terrible failure, and after World War II, a remarkable success. After World War I, we made Germany pay its debts and we left them in ruins. We sent them a bill. We went home. We got Adolf Hitler. After World War II, we pursued the Marshall plan.”