According to The Observer an appeal to Americans (and others, I suppose) to donate money to assist in the reconstruction of Iraq has raised a total of six hundred dollars ($600) [actually $540 - see below] since it was launched September 9th.
"The public's reluctance to contribute much more than the cost of two iPods to the administration's attempt to offer citizens 'a further stake in building a free and prosperous Iraq' has been seized on by critics as evidence of growing ambivalence over that country."
Huh. Perhaps, since aid for the poor after Katrina "is working very well for them," Iraqi war supporters should be hit up to donate to rebuild the destruction we created there. Operation Green Elephant, anyone? Click on the logo above to add your donation to the $30 billion in tax dollars already appropriated to Iraqi reconstruction.
USaid's Heather Layman denied it was disappointed with the meagre sum raised after a fortnight. 'Every little helps,' she said...Layman [also] said: 'There is no financial goal. People are looking for a way to help rebuild Iraq and this is a way to facilitate that.'
USAid does not provide email addresses from their website, so I used their contact form to ask for the total number of donations to the effort, and what the cost was for the relationship with GlobalGiving, which is processing the donations made at the iraqpartnership.org website. GlobalGiving's site [it is a 501(c)3 even though the address is a .com] says that "we retain a 10% transaction fee on all donations."
