Key rebuilding projects in Iraq are grinding to a halt because US money is running out and security has diverted funds intended for electricity, water and sanitation, according to US officials.
Plans to overhaul the country's infrastructure have been downsized, postponed or abandoned because the US$24 billion budget approved by Congress has been dwarfed by the scale of the task.
"We have scaled back our projects in many areas," James Jeffrey, a senior State Department adviser on Iraq, told a congressional committee in Washington, in remarks quoted by the Los Angeles Times. "We do not have the money."
Water and sanitation have been particularly badly hit. According to a report published this week by Government Accountability Office, US$2.6 billion has been spent on water projects, half the original budget, after the rest was diverted to security and other uses.
The report said "attacks, threats and intimidation against project contractors and subcontractors" were to blame. A quarter of the US$200 million worth of completed US-funded water projects handed over to the Iraqi authorities no longer worked properly because of "looting, unreliable electricity or inadequate Iraqi staff and supplies," the report found. Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress also said administrative bungling had played a part.
The US special inspector general for Iraqi reconstruction, Stuart Bowen, said he was reluctant to ask for cash immediately after Hurricane Katrina, and said non-US sources might be asked to plug the gap.
"It is an issue that we need to address at the right time," he said.
After Congress approved funding two years ago, oil, electricity, water and sanitation facilities were found to be more degraded than expected. Amid the chaos and corruption of the post-Saddam administration, insurgents also began to target the infrastructure and anyone working for the US or the Iraqi government.
It is in this context that many of the estimated 20,000 foreign security contractors now in Iraq -- some paid more than US$1,000 a day -- are employed. Bowen said US$5 billion had been diverted to security.
Some areas now get less than four hours of electricity a day, and there's been a surge in dehydration and diarrhea cases among children and the elderly. The cost of providing enough electricity for the country by 2010 is put at US$20 billion.
Fuel shortages have produced mile-long queues at gas stations. Crude oil production is around 2.2 million barrels a day, still below its pre-war peaks, according to the Brookings Institution.
There have been improvements: the health ministry says the overall rate of disease among children under five has dropped; parts of Baghdad are noticeably sprucer; and thousands of schools have been built or rehabilitated. But the House Appropriations Foreign Operations Subcommittee is losing patience.
"It seems almost incomprehensible to me that we haven't been able to do better," said Don Sherwood, a Republican. Another Republican, committee chairman Jim Kolbe, said the Bush administration's vision of stabilizing Iraq by funding reconstruction was "a castle built of sand."
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
A US federal judge on Tuesday ordered US President Donald Trump’s administration to halt efforts to shut down Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Asia and Middle East Broadcasting Networks, the news broadcasts of which are funded by the government to export US values to the world. US District Judge Royce Lamberth, who is overseeing six lawsuits from employees and contractors affected by the shutdown of the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), ordered the administration to “take all necessary steps” to restore employees and contractors to their positions and resume radio, television and online news broadcasts. USAGM placed more than 1,000
RSS