American- Financed Rebuilding In Iraq Is Shoddy

NYTIMES

By JAMES GLANZ

Published: April 29, 2007

In a troubling sign for the American-financed rebuilding program in Iraq, inspectors for a federal oversight agency have found that in a sampling of eight projects that the United States had declared successes, seven were no longer operating as designed because of plumbing and electrical failures, lack of proper maintenance, apparent looting and expensive equipment that lay idle.

The United States has previously admitted, sometimes under pressure from federal inspectors, that some of its reconstruction projects have been abandoned, delayed or poorly constructed. But this is the first time inspectors have found that projects officially declared a success — in some cases, as little as six months before the latest inspections — were no longer working properly.

   This would be the Bush Crime Family off-spring pocketing millions, if not billions, and doing half-assed work. I'm not a bit surprised, are you?

  The Times says that $8.6 million in new generators for the Baghdad International Airport are no longer working. This is out of $11.8 million in total cash that was spent for the generators. You'd think that the airport would be important enough to keep things working properly.

At the maternity hospital, a rehabilitation project in the northern city of Erbil, an expensive incinerator for medical waste was padlocked — Iraqis at the hospital could not find the key when inspectors asked to see the equipment — and partly as a result, medical waste including syringes, used bandages and empty drug vials were clogging the sewage system and probably contaminating the water system.

The newly built water purification system was not functioning either.

   Sorry folks, but this is downright disgusting! Our resident up in the White House is as disgusting as they can come. So are the contractors ( Bushies ) who are ripping you and I off and ripping the Iraqis off also!

  As is noted in the Times report, the Iraqis are to blame for some of the problems because they do not trust the new equipment or because they aren't trained to operate certain things.

The dates when the projects were completed and deemed successful ranged from six months to almost a year and a half before the latest inspections. But those inspections found numerous instances of power generators that no longer operated; sewage systems that had clogged and overflowed, damaging sections of buildings; electrical systems that had been jury-rigged or stripped of components; floors that had buckled; concrete that had crumbled; and expensive equipment that was simply not in use.

Curiously, most of the problems seemed unrelated to sabotage stemming from Iraq’s parlous security situation, but instead were the product of poor initial construction, petty looting, a lack of any maintenance and simple neglect.

     We have been always hearing how well the reconstruction effort is going in Iraq, but this appears to not be the case. Of course, many Bushies are in denial of the facts.

And those declared successes are heavily promoted by the United States government. A 2006 news release by the Army Corps, titled “Erbil Maternity and Pediatric Hospital — not just bricks and mortar!” praises both the new water purification system and the incinerator. The incinerator, the release said, would “keep medical waste from entering into the solid waste and water systems.”

But when Mr. Bowen’s office presented the Army Corps with the finding that neither system was working at the struggling hospital and recommended a training program so that Iraqis could properly operate the equipment, General Walsh tersely disagreed with the recommendation in a letter appended to the report, which also noted that the building had suffered damage because workers used excess amounts of water to clean the floors.

The bureau within the United States Embassy in Baghdad that oversees reconstruction in Iraq was even more dismissive, disagreeing with all four of the inspector general’s recommendations, including those suggesting that the United States should lend advice on disposing of the waste and maintaining the floors.

  Who will be blamed for this, the janitor?

Tags: Iraq reconstruction Baghdad U.S. Embassy