- WASHINGTON - The reconstruction
of Iraq is failing rapidly despite repeated claims of progress by the George
W. Bush administration, according to a number of U.S. officials and reports
released here this week.
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- Democratic Congressman Henry Waxman issued a report that
found reconstruction efforts in the occupied Arab country have consistently
fallen short of the objectives set by the administration two years ago.
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- This view was echoed by Stuart W. Bowen Jr., special
inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, in a congressional hearing Thursday.
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- Bowen, whose office issued several reports and audits
in the past about Iraq, said that the security situation is sapping money
and energy out of the reconstruction effort and that much less money than
originally envisioned will be spent on Iraqi projects..
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- According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO),
a congressional watchdog agency, about 30 billion dollars was authorized
through August 2005 to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure and train and equip
its security forces. But Bowen said Washington will have to be more realistic
about what can actually be spent of that amount.
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- "We are going to provide something less than that,"
Bowen said pointing to a significant gap between the original plans and
what is being achieved on the ground in Iraq.
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- The GAO itself says that only 13 billion dollars of the
30 billion dollars were actually disbursed so far.
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- "The existence of this gap may subject the U.S.
to criticism for not fulfilling what was perceived as a promised number
of projects," Bowen said.
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- The Waxman report assesses reconstruction work in three
key sectors of the Iraqi economy -- oil, electricity and water. It found
that the administration's actual results on the ground are far less than
what is publicized.
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- "Oil production remains below pre-war levels, electricity
production is unreliable and well below the goal of 6,000 megawatts of
peak electricity output, and a third of Iraqis still lack access to potable
water," says the report. "Billions of taxpayer dollars have been
spent, but there is little to show for the expenditures in Iraq."
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- When the Bush administration asked Congress to appropriate
over 20 billion dollars for reconstruction efforts in 2003, it promised
to use the money to provide clean drinking water to 90 percent of Iraqis,
boost power production significantly above prewar levels, and restore oil
production to prewar levels.
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- But oversight agencies like the GAO and Inspectors General
(IGs) have published more than 80 reports on Iraq reconstruction and other
aspects of U.S. support for post-war Iraq, many of them critical.
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- This week, the GAO said that even in the case of completed
projects, the Washington-backed Iraqi government has been unable to sustain
rebuilt infrastructure due to shortages of power, trained staff and supplies.
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- As of July, water and sanitation projects worth 52 million
dollars either were not operating or were operating at low capacity due
to these problems, GAO said.
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- Rep. Christopher Shays, chairman of the Government Reform
Subcommittee on National Security in the U.S. House of Representatives,
said that congress is witnessing a rise in the cost of projects even though
many of them have not been completed.
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- "Electric and water projects are being scaled back,
while estimates of the costs to complete the same projects continue to
escalate," Shays said.
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- The difficult security situation in Iraq and the rising
Iraqi resistance have been cited as the main reasons for the slow progress
in the reconstruction efforts. Billions of dollars have been diverted away
from rebuilding projects in order to pay private security contractors and
to train and equip Iraqi forces more rapidly.
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- Initial estimates of security costs have nearly tripled
from less than 10 percent of total project expenses to almost 30 percent.
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- A number of U.S. legislators who previously backed the
war are now criticizing the slow pace of progress in Iraq and have questioned
whether it is fueling further discontent among Iraqis and providing more
recruits to the Iraqi resistance.
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- The GAO says that initial estimates of Iraq's needs assumed
that reconstruction would take place in a peacetime environment, and therefore
did not include additional security costs.
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- Some of the official reports say that U.S. goals are
not being achieved due to poor planning, lack of accurate costs estimates
and operational constraints on top of the extra costs imposed by the lack
of security.
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- Waxman also criticized what he called the administration's
"flawed contracting approach".
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- He said that instead of encouraging competition, the
administration awarded large no-bid contracts to favored companies like
Halliburton. Then it handed over major oversight responsibilities to private
contractors with potential conflicts of interest.
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- Joseph Christoff of the GAO faulted the initial assessments
of the state of Iraq's infrastructure, saying it was more severely degraded
than originally estimated, and that widespread looting and sabotage compounded
the problem.
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- But it appears that many U.S. politicians are finally
taking note of the slow progress in the reconstruction effort and the political
price-tag it may carry both at home and in Iraq.
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- "That cycle of rosy estimates and stunted outcomes
exacts high political costs as well," Shays said. "Limited visible
progress in improving basic services frustrates Iraqis, who wonder why
a liberating coalition that conquered their nation in less than two months
can't keep the lights lit after two years."
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- © Copyright 2005 IPS - Inter Press Service
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