Federal Inspectors have found that in a sampling of eight Iraq reconstruction 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 Bush administration has previously admitted 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 were no longer working properly.
At the Baghdad international airport, inspectors found that while $11.8 million had been spent on new electrical generators, $8.6 million worth were no longer functioning. 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.
The reconstruction effort was originally designed as nearly equal to the military push to stabilize Iraq, to allow the government to function and business to flourish, and promote good will toward the United States. “These first inspections indicate that the concerns that we and others have had about the Iraqis sustaining our investments in these projects are valid,” said Stuart W. Bowen Jr., who leads the office of the special inspector general.
Exactly who is to blame for the poor record on sustainment was not laid out in the report, but the American reconstruction program has been repeatedly criticized for not including in its rebuilding budget enough of the costs for such obvious things as spare parts and training. The new report provides some support for that position: a sophisticated system for distributing oxygen throughout the Erbil hospital had been ignored by medical staff members, who told inspectors that they distrusted the new equipment and had gone back to using tried-and-true oxygen tanks — which were stored unsafely throughout the building.
Most of the problems seemed unrelated to sabotage stemming from Iraq’s perilous security situation, but instead were the product of poor initial construction, petty looting, a lack of any maintenance and simple neglect. A case in point was the $5.2 million project undertaken by the United States Army Corps of Engineers to build the special forces barracks in Baghdad. The project was completed in September 2005, but by the time inspectors visited last month, there were numerous problems caused by faulty plumbing throughout the buildings, and four large electrical generators, each costing $50,000, were no longer operating. The problems with the generators were seemingly minor: missing batteries, a failure to maintain adequate oil levels in the engines, fuel lines that had been pilfered or broken. That kind of neglect is typical of rebuilding programs in developing countries when local nationals are not closely involved in planning efforts, said Rick Barton, co-director of the postconflict reconstruction project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Mr. Barton, said the American rebuilding program had too often createdresentment by imposing projects on Iraqis or relying solely on the advice of a local tribal chief or some “self-appointed representative” of local Iraqis.
See the full article at the New York Times website.
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