Billions wasted in Iraq, says US audit

[spindrifter]

Ewen MacAskill in Washington
Monday May 1, 2006
The Guardian

A US congressional inspection team set up to monitor reconstruction in Iraq today publishes a scathing report of failures by contractors, mainly from the US, to carry out projects worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

In one case, the inspection team found that three years after the invasion only six of 150 health centres proposed for Iraq had been completed by a US contractor, in spite of 75% of the $186m (£100m) allocated having been spent.

<snip>

The detailed and lengthy report on work projects in Iraq has been drawn up by Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction (Sigir). Mr Bowen's office was set up after Congress expressed concern about the slow rate of reconstruction and the misuse of funds on a massive scale.

<snip>

The inspectors audited Task Force Shield, a project established in September 2003 to build Iraq's capacity to protect its oil, gas and electrical infrastructure, and found significant shortcomings. The report concludes the project "failed to meet its goals because it was burdened by a lack of clear management structure and poor accountability. There were also indications of potential fraud, which are now under review by Sigir investigators."

<snip>

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1765048,00.html

++++++++++++++

This is an excellent article. The 4-para rule limits what I can reproduce, obviously, but there is an interesting statement equating "corruption" to "insurgency." I guess we are exporting our own "insurgents," since much of the corruption the report identifies is certainly of our own doing.

[MadMaddie]

1. This is no surprise....billions wasted by this administration...

no surprise there.....The US could have rebuilt the Gulf with a fraction of the money that was mishandled in Iraq...

[burythehatchet]

2. Big differnce between wasted and stolen

They want you to think it was "wasted"

[lonestarnot]

3. Such precision with those words!

:yourock:

[marmar]

4. Yet college kids can't get grants, seniors can't afford prescriptions...

Assistance for the poor is being slashed, money for public education is drying up...

A nation with its priorities this screwed up is a nation headed for disaster. :cry:

[shance]

5. Billions weren't wasted. Billions were intentionally stolen.

n/t

[henslee]

6. THIS IS (Fiscal accountabilty) THE ISSUE. Dems should not get caught

up in the "morality of the war" as the issue. Focus on the millins blown in Iraq and demand a full accounting.

[dchill]

11. "morality of the war"

the war is immoral...

[cassiepriam]

7. "Wasted" translation: Stolen by repugs... follow the money trail

that will tell the whole story.....

[mike_c]

8. Amerika unleashed carpet baggers in Poland, err, I mean Iraq....

And the outcome surprises anyone? This was a raid on the U.S. Treasury, plain and simple, and Congress was fully complicit. The war crimes tribunals should roll on for about a decade, IMO.

[biscotti]

9. It is like they are

intentionally drying up the treasury. Their Norquist theory of shrinking the government and drowned it in a bathtub. They resent S.S. and other entitlements. They have probably all loaded up on gold.

[Telly Savalas]

10. Wait for the GOP to suggest that we can save money

by not spending any more on audits.

[BeFree]

12. The best government is one which governs least

And that's the kind of government we've set up in Iraq.
-----------
Now where did I hear THAT before?

[garybeck]

13. what about the billions that DISAPPEARED?

[rodeodance]

14. can't find it--went down a Black Hole-and we are going to throw more

BILLIONS down that whole.