US$767 billion wasted and Iraq is still broken
(03-06 15:09)
Ten years and US$60 billion in American taxpayer funds later, Iraq is still so unstable and broken that even its leaders question whether US efforts to rebuild the war-torn nation were worth the cost. Overall, Washington has spent at least US$767 billion since the Iraq invasion.
In his final report to Congress, Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Stuart Bowen's conclusion was all too clear: Since the invasion a decade ago this month, the US has spent too much money in Iraq for too few results.
The reconstruction effort “grew to a size much larger than was ever anticipated,'' Bowen told The Associated Press in a preview of his last audit of US funds spent in Iraq, to be released today. “Not enough was accomplished for the size of the funds expended.''
In interviews with Bowen, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said the US funding “could have brought great change in Iraq'' but fell short too often. “There was misspending of money,'' said al-Maliki, a Shiite Muslim whose sect makes up about 60 percent of Iraq's population.
The abysmal Iraq results forecast what could happen in Afghanistan, where US taxpayers have so far spent US$90 billion in reconstruction projects during a 12-year military campaign that, for the most part, ends in 2014.
Shortly after the March 2003 invasion, Congress set up a US$2.4 billion fund to help ease the sting of war for Iraqis. It aimed to rebuild Iraq's water and electricity systems; provide food, health care and governance for its people; and take care of those who were forced from their homes in the fighting. Fewer than six months later, President George W. Bush asked for US$20 billion more to further stabilize Iraq and help turn it into an ally that could gain economic independence and reap global investments.
To date, the US has spent more than US$60 billion in reconstruction grants to help Iraq get back on its feet after the country has been broken by more than two decades of war, sanctions and dictatorship. That works out to about US$15 million a day.
And yet Iraq's government is rife with corruption and infighting. Baghdad's streets are still cowed by near-daily deadly bombings. A quarter of the country's 31 million population lives in poverty, and few have reliable electricity and clean water.
Overall, including all military and diplomatic costs and other aid, the US has spent at least US$767 billion since the American-led invasion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. National Priorities Project, a US research group that analyzes federal data, estimated the cost at US$811 billion, noting that some funds are still being spent on ongoing projects.
Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, a member of the Senate committee that oversees US funding, said the Bush administration should have agreed to give the reconstruction money to Iraq as a loan in 2003 instead as an outright gift.
“It's been an extraordinarily disappointing effort and, largely, a failed program,'' Collins said in an interview. “I believe, had the money been structured as a loan in the first place, that we would have seen a far more responsible approach to how the money was used, and lower levels of corruption in far fewer ways.''
In numerous interviews with Iraqi and U.S. officials, and though multiple examples of thwarted or defrauded projects, Bowen's report laid bare a trail of waste, including:
_In Iraq's eastern Diyala province, a crossroads for Shiite militias, Sunni insurgents and Kurdish squatters, the US began building a 3,600-bed prison in 2004 but abandoned the project after three years to flee a surge in violence. The half-completed Khan Bani Sa'ad Correctional Facility cost American taxpayers US$40 million but sits in rubble, and Iraqi Justice Ministry officials say they have no plans to ever finish or use it.
_Subcontractors for Anham, based in Vienna, Virginia, overcharged the US government thousands of dollars for supplies, including US$900 for a control switch valued at US$7.05 and US$80 for a piece of pipe that costs US$1.41. Anham was hired to maintain and operate warehouses and supply centers near Baghdad's international airport and the Persian Gulf port at Umm Qasr.
_ A US$108 million wastewater treatment center in the city of Fallujah, a former al-Qaida stronghold in western Iraq, will have taken eight years longer to build than planned when it is completed in 2014 and will only service 9,000 homes. Iraqi officials must provide an additional US$87 million to hook up most of the rest of the city, or 25,000 additional homes.
_After blowing up the al-Fatah bridge in north-central Iraq during the invasion and severing a crucial oil and gas pipeline, US officials decided to try to rebuild the pipeline under the Tigris River at a cost of US$75 million. A geological study predicted the project might fail, and it did: Eventually, the bridge and pipelines were repaired at an additional cost of US$29 million.
_A widespread ring of fraud led by a former US Army officer resulted in tens of millions of dollars in kickbacks and the criminal convictions of 22 people connected to government contracts for bottled water and other supplies at the Iraqi reconstruction program's headquarters at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait.
In too many cases, Bowen concluded, U.S. officials did not consult with Iraqis closely or deeply enough to determine what reconstruction projects were really needed or, in some cases, wanted. A
The missed opportunities were not lost on at least 15 senior State and Defense department officials interviewed in the report, including ambassadors and generals, who were directly involved in rebuilding Iraq.
One key lesson learned in Iraq, Deputy Secretary of State William Burns told auditors, is that the U.S. cannot expect to “do it all and do it our way. We must share the burden better multilaterally and engage the host country constantly on what is truly needed.’’
About a third of the US$60 billion was spent to train and equip Iraqi security forces, which had to be rebuilt after the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority disbanded Saddam's army in 2003. Today, Iraqi forces have varying successes in safekeeping the public and only limited ability to secure their land, air and sea borders.
|
