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US inspectors pan Iraq reconstruction

In a troubling sign for the US-financed rebuilding program in Iraq, inspectors for a federal oversight agency have found that in a sampling of eight projects that the US had declared successes, seven were no longer operating as designed because of plumbing and electrical failures, lack of proper maintenance, apparent looting and expensive equipment that lay idle.

The US has previously admitted, sometimes under pressure from federal inspectors, that some of its reconstruction projects have been abandoned, delayed or poorly constructed. But this is the first time inspectors have found that projects officially declared a success -- in some cases, as little as six months before the latest inspections -- were no longer working properly.

The inspections ranged geographically from northern Iraq to southern Iraq and covered projects as varied as a maternity hospital, barracks for an Iraqi special forces unit, and a power station for Baghdad International Airport.

Officials at the oversight agency, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, said they had made an effort to sample different regions and various types of projects, but that they were constrained from taking a true random sample in part because many projects were in areas too unsafe to visit. So, they said, the initial set of eight projects -- which cost a total of about US$150 million -- cannot be seen as a true statistical measure of the thousands of projects in the roughly US$30 billion US rebuilding program.

But the officials said the initial findings raised serious new concerns about the effort.

The reconstruction effort was originally designed as nearly equal to the military push to stabilize Iraq, to allow the government to function and business to flourish and promote good will toward the US.

Exactly who is to blame for the poor record on sustainment for the first sample of eight projects was not laid out in the report, but the US reconstruction program has been repeatedly criticized for not including in its rebuilding budget enough of the costs for spare parts, training, stronger construction and other elements that would enable projects to continue to function once they have been built.

The Iraqis themselves appear to share responsibility for the latest problems, which cropped up after the US turned the projects over to the Iraqi government. Still, the new findings show that the enormous US investment in the Iraqi reconstruction program is at risk, said Stuart Bowen Jr, who leads the office of the special inspector general.
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