Today, the weather looks absolutely awful. Hopefully in keeping with yesterday's theme, I'm going to assume that work will be super-easy.

If you're concerned that Bush's SOTU speech will be full of deceptions and spin, it's nice to take a brief look over at a new Washington Post article that is refreshing for its candor. Let's roll the tape:

The quarterly report, the eighth published by the special inspector general's office, was the first to focus on how far reconstruction efforts have missed targets for provision of basic services outlined by the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S.-administered body that governed Iraq after the 2003 invasion.

"After 18 months of intense reconstruction activity, many services have not returned to prewar levels," Bowen wrote.

Iraq was generating 4,500 megawatts of electricity before the invasion, and reconstruction officials said in 2003 their target was 6,000 megawatts, Bowen wrote. Iraq's current generating capacity is 3,995 megawatts.

Before the war, Baghdad residents received an average of 16 to 24 hours of electricity a day. They currently receive 3.7, the report said. Outside the capital, however, the situation has improved to 10.2 hours per day from four to eight hours before the war.

While Iraq produced 2.6 million barrels per day of crude oil before the war, it now produces 2.1 million, the report said.

And 8.25 million Iraqis currently have access to potable water, compared with 12.9 million before the war. Reconstruction officials had aimed to bring potable water to 23.4 million citizens.

You can say "we're opening schools" until you're blue in the face, but these numbers don't lie. The problem is two-fold: first, American companies are simply not up to the task of rapid reconstruction in war-torn areas; second, the ongoing security situation makes such reconstruction impossible.

The latter problem is, of course, somewhat of our own doing. By failing to properly plan for the insurgency, we ensured that a large number of delicate projects would be easily disrupted. Getting electricity back online is a good example. After having a talk with an individual who was

• a member of the CPA
• a violent party host

I determined that the overall American attitude toward the Iraqis is one of incompetence. He informed me that the reason the electricity wasn't working was that Iraqis were scavenging for metal, and that the transmission poles were easy targets for them. As fast as we'd put them up, they'd take them down. This seems like an oversimplification at best, but the larger point, namely, that we cannot provide electrical services, is correct. My simple solution? Why don't we just bury the lines?

And that brings me to the first problem: the lack of American know-how. I admit, that performing building/construction projects in a war-torn area must be difficult. But we've had years to train at this sort of thing. Why couldn't the Pentagon, through DARPA, develop a program for the sort of rapid reconstruction that would enable Iraqis to see immediate tangible benefits? To look at a single example, let's take potable water.

I find it difficult to believe that insurgents are blowing up water lines (as opposed to oil lines) but even so, shouldn't we have the ability to construct a brand new water distribution system in a town in a matter of hours? It's not rocket science, it's simple construction. Have the army move through and "clear out" any insurgents (despite their ability to come back) and in the following twelve hours, let the contractors in to install water and electrical lines.

You know what this reminds me of? That's right: rebuilding post-Katrina. The failure of the government to either possess or encourage the private sector to develop a rapid-response emergency construction team is inexcusable in this day and age.