A Congressional investigation into reconstruction in Iraq found that six out of eight projects the Bush administration claimed to be a success were falling apart, throwing doubts over the long-term viability of much of the $30-billion programme.
The report, published on Monday, looks at sample projects ranging from a hospital to Baghdad International Airport, and finds serious failures and neglect at the heart of the reconstruction plan.
Stuart Bowen, the head of the office of special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, says: ”These first inspections indicate that the concerns … about the Iraqis sustaining our investments in these projects are valid.”
The inspectors found serious plumbing and electrical failures, looting and expensive equipment lying idle, either because staff did not know how to use it or those that did were no longer employed.
Of the eight projects that had been declared a success, some only six months before the inspection took place, six were now no longer working properly. The inspectors expressed concern at the speed of deterioration and questioned whether the projects would survive.
The office of the special inspector general was set up by Congress to monitor reconstruction projects after reports of widescale waste of funds. It produces quarterly updates, most of which have been scathing about the lack of progress.
The office, which was set up in January 2004, has 55 auditors and investigators in Iraq and 78 inquiries under way into fraud, waste and abuse of funds. The parlous security situation, highlighted at the weekend with a car bomb in the holy city of Kerbala that killed at least 55, has further hampered the reconstruction effort.
At a recruiting centre in Hilla, south of Baghdad, inspectors found bathrooms buckled by what appeared to be blocked drains and faulty wiring. The inspectors said the centre had been built to specification but its life would be significantly shortened if the problems were left unresolved.
The latest report blames the problems not on the insurgents but mainly on poor maintenance. Part of the responsibility lay with the Iraqis and part with the United States for failing to include funding for maintenance, such as training and spare parts.
Although the full report was not published until Monday, the office distributed details of the case studies over the weekend.
At the airport, critical for maintaining the US presence in Baghdad, the inspectors found that while $11,8-million had been spent on new electrical generators, $8,6-million-worth were no longer functioning.
Inspectors found numerous problems on a visit to a $5,2-milliom special-forces barracks in Baghdad, completed by the US army corps of engineers in September 2005. The problems related to faulty plumbing throughout the buildings. Four large electrical generators, each costing $50 000, were no longer working.
At a maternity and children’s hospital in Irbil, in the north of the country, inspectors found a sewer system that was occasionally clogged. Inspectors saw needles, bandages and other medical waste in the sewer system and septic tank.
A new incinerator to dispose of such waste was not in use. The report says the inspectors found this was ”because those initially trained to operate the incinerator were no longer employed at the hospital”.
The door to the incinerator was padlocked and no one could be found with the key. It added: ”The new sophisticated oxygen generator and distribution system was, by choice, used only as a back-up system, while hospital staff continued to use oxygen tanks.”
Hospital staff were using an excessive amount of water to clean floors, leading to water being absorbed into the walls. ”Excess water has also leaked from the second-story hallways and bathrooms to various first floor rooms, including critical patient care areas.”
The inspectors were relatively satisfied with two projects, both police stations, and expressed confidence that these will last in the long term.
The office said that a comprehensive survey of thousands of reconstruction projects in Iraq since 2003 was difficult because of security problems. — Guardian Unlimited Â