Report: Empty Prison in Iraq a $40M 'Failure'

[Hissyspit]

Source: Associated Press

Report: Empty prison in Iraq a $40M 'failure'
By BRIAN MURPHY and PAULINE JELINEK (Associated Press Writers)
From Associated Press
July 27, 2008 11:36 PM EDT

BAGHDAD - In the flatlands north of Baghdad sits a prison with no prisoners. It holds something else: a chronicle of U.S. government waste, misguided planning and construction shortcuts costing $40 million and stretching back to the American overseers who replaced Saddam Hussein.

"It's a bit of a monument in the desert right now because it's not going to be used as a prison," said Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, whose office plans to release a report Monday detailing the litany of problems at the vacant detention center in Khan Bani Saad.

The pages also add another narrative to the wider probes into the billions lost so far on scrubbed or substandard projects in Iraq and one of the main contractors accused of failing to deliver, the Parsons construction group of Pasadena, Calif. "This is $40 million invested in a project with very little return," Bowen told The Associated Press in Washington. "A couple of buildings are useful. Other than that, it's a failure."

In the pecking order of corruption in Iraq, the dead-end prison project at Khan Bani Saad is nowhere near the biggest or most tangled. Bowen estimated up to 20 percent "waste" - or more than $4 billion - from the $21 billion spent so far in the U.S.-bankrolled Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund. It's just one piece of a recovery effort that swelled beyond $112 billion in U.S., Iraqi and international contributions.

Read more: http://enews.earthlink.net/article/top?guid=20080727/488bf2c0_3ca6_1552620080727-677272645

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[Captain Angry]

1. Darn those wasteful tax and spend Democrats! Oh, wait.

Yeah, this will get MSM coverage.

[Plucketeer]

2. It heartens me to know...

... that this particular $40M wasn't wasted on our crumbling bridges or better security systems in our seaports! Ironic that the first letter of "waste" is a W.

:grr:

[saigon68]

7. Some contractor made a bundle and graft was rampant

I'm willing to bet

[asteroid2003QQ47]

3. Smell a rat?

As in- What country is in dire need of more prison space for it's
citizens?

---------------------------------------
Winston Smith: Does Big Brother exist?
O'Brien: Of course he exists.
Winston Smith: Does he exist like you or me?
O'Brien: You do not exist.

[Doug.Goodall]

4. See! The prison is empty. That can only mean we are winning this illegal war.

From the article:

"As of this spring, Parsons had been paid $333 million. More than $142 million of that - or almost 43 percent - was for projects that were terminated or canceled."

No quality control needed for projects that are canceled. That money is just pure profit for the contractor.

[unhappycamper]

5. Shit. The war and occupation has been a $3.5 trillion dollar failure. n/t

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

6. 40 mil here, 40 mil there, pretty soon...

Ahhh, what's the fucking use. I simply can't bring myself to work up a good rage any more. I'm officially in overload over the sheer uselessness (and hopelessness) of it all.

:shrug: