Shoddy Reconstruction Work in Iraq - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

powerclown · 04-30-2007, 02:22 PM

It appears our efforts at reconstruction in Iraq have fallen under a system of checks and balances of a sort. What are the ramifications here? Do american taxpayers and shareholders have a say in reconstruction design and architectural style in, say, Ramadi, Iraq? Is a toilet intrinsically better than just goinging outside? Will there be effective gun control legislation? Will national parks and publics zoos soon follow? Will there be free wi-fi in Baghdad? Will Cadillac look to establish car dealerships for a growing demographic? Will Iraq be secular one day?

Quote:

Inspectors find rebuilt projects crumbling in Iraq
A sampling of eight projects declared successes by the U.S. discovers seven no longer operating as designed.

By James Glanz
THE NEW YORK TIMES
Sunday, April 29, 2007

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

The United States 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 found that projects officially declared successes — in some cases, as little as six months before the latest inspections — were no longer working properly.

The inspections ranged geographically from northern 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.

At the airport, crucial to the functioning of the country, inspectors found that though $11.8 million had been spent on new electrical generators, $8.6 million worth were no longer functioning.

At the maternity hospital in the northern city of Erbil, an incinerator for medical waste was padlocked — Iraqis at the hospital could not find the key when inspectors asked to see the equipment — and, partly as a result, medical waste, including syringes and empty drug vials, was clogging the sewage system and probably contaminating water.

A new water purification system was not functioning, either.

Officials at the oversight agency, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, said that 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 $150 million — cannot be seen as a true statistical measure of the thousands of projects in the $30 billion American 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, allow the government to function and business to flourish, and promote good will toward the United States.

"These first inspections indicate that the concerns that we and others have had about the Iraqis sustaining our investments in these projects are valid," said Stuart Bowen Jr., who leads the special inspector general's office.

The conclusions will be summarized in the latest quarterly report by Bowen's office on Monday.

Bowen said that because he suspected that completed projects were not being maintained, he had ordered a wider program of returning to examine projects that had been completed for at least six months.

Exactly who is to blame for the poor record on sustainment for the sample projects was not laid out in the report, but the 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.

The Iraqis themselves appear to share responsibility for the latest problems, which cropped up after the United States turned the projects over to the Iraqi government. Still, the findings show that the enormous American investment in the reconstruction program is at risk, Bowen said.

Besides the airport, hospital and special forces barracks, places where inspectors found serious problems were two projects at a military base near Nasiriyah and one at a military recruiting center in Hillah — both cities in the south — and a police station in Mosul, a northern city. A second police station in Mosul was found to be in good condition.

The dates projects were completed and deemed successful ranged from six months to almost a year and a half before the latest inspections.

Most of the problems seemed unrelated to sabotage but instead were the product of poor initial construction, petty looting, a lack of maintenance and simple neglect.

The new findings come after years of insistence by American officials in Baghdad that too much attention has been paid to the failures in Iraq and not enough to the successes.

Brig. Gen. Michael Walsh, commander of the Gulf Region Division of the Army Corps of Engineers, said at a news conference in Baghdad last month that with so much coverage of violence in Iraq "what you don't see are the successes in the reconstruction program, how reconstruction is making a difference in the lives of everyday Iraqi people."

And those declared successes are promoted by the U.S. government. A 2006 news release by the Army Corps, titled "Erbil Maternity and Pediatric Hospital — not just bricks and mortar!" praises both the new water purification system and the incinerator. The incinerator, the release said, would "keep medical waste from entering into the solid waste and water systems."

But when Bowen's office told the Army Corps that neither system was working at the struggling hospital and recommended a training program so that Iraqis could properly operate the equipment, Walsh tersely disagreed with the recommendation in a letter appended to the report, which also noted that the building had suffered damage because workers used excess amounts of water to clean the floors.

The bureau within the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad that oversees reconstruction in Iraq was even more dismissive, disagreeing with all four of the inspector general's recommendations, including those suggesting that the United States should lend advice on waste disposal and floor maintenance.

???

ratbastid · 04-30-2007, 07:27 PM

So the whole "reconstruction" thing is just for show. Somehow that resonates with my sense of it.

Willravel · 04-30-2007, 07:40 PM

If they built quality stuff over there, how would the crooks shave billions off the top?

I'm glad the NYTimes decided to report on this. I'd like for every news outlet in the world to cover it 24/7 until this shitstorm stops.

powerclown · 04-30-2007, 07:52 PM

And different areas are receiving differing levels of craftmanship. But slowly, surely, they are being assimilated. I for one, as a taxpayer, would like to know if there are plans somewhere for a KFC franchise in Baghdad, for example. I mean how far are we going we this? Will Iraq be the new Japan of the 21st century? Or the new Somalia?

Willravel · 04-30-2007, 08:16 PM

Afghanistan, actually.

Or imagine Vietnam with decades of Islamic sectarian violence. Kinda like that.

Seaver · 04-30-2007, 10:14 PM

I've done a lot of study on the Middle East, and as one of my professors put it (even before the conflicts) it takes $10,000 to do a $50 job in many areas. Corruption isn't an issue, it's a way of life in many regions.

The reason it's easy to point fingers is we are used to a system of book-keeping which lists every cost and expenditure. Culturally, these regions have always been given a set amount of money and then assumed that the tribal elder's children, friends, militias, etc. etc. would skim off their share.

We are always told that we need to understand the cultures of foreigners, and we need to adapt to their ways. This is one of them, by allowing the tribal elders to skim their share we ensure good will and cooperation. It also gives us a stick to the carrot, in that we can always give the contracts to rival tribes.

Willravel · 05-01-2007, 03:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seaver

Corruption isn't an issue, it's a way of life in many regions.

You're acting as if this is okay, but I can't figure out why....Many Iraqi still don't have power. This is 4 years after Mission Accomplished and many still have to go outside their home to get fresh water. We are pumping hundreds of billions of dollars into the place, and MOST of that is disappearing into deep pockets, and not of Iraqis.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seaver

We are always told that we need to understand the cultures of foreigners, and we need to adapt to their ways.

Haliburton isn't a culture, it's a symptom of a disease.

host · 05-01-2007, 06:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seaver

I've done a lot of study on the Middle East....

.....We are always told that we need to understand the cultures of foreigners, and we need to adapt to their ways. This is one of them, by allowing the tribal elders to skim their share we ensure good will and cooperation. It also gives us a stick to the carrot, in that we can always give the contracts to rival tribes.

Seaver, your reaction that this mess can be dismissed as due to the "culture of foreigners", prompts me to ask two things, in view also, of the following news reports....

Is the tuition that you pay for your "middle east studies", reasonable or more burdensome, and do you ever <b>"Picture yourself on a boat on a river With tangerine trees and marmalade skies"....</b>I suspect that the name of that river is "denial"....

It is the corrupt US administration and it's political party that "killed Iraq", Seaver, and they've already unsuccessfully tried to "shoot the messenger", their own Stuart Bowen Jr.

Quote:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15591657/
What fired Iraq watchdog has been watching
As well as mislaid weapons, report lists a litany of waste and other abuses

ANALYSIS
By Carl Sears
NBC News Producer
NBC News
Updated: 3:32 p.m. ET Nov 6, 2006

WASHINGTON — While surging violence grabs headlines, Iraq reconstruction continues to fall far short of U.S. and Iraqi goals, further undermining stability in the nascent democracy.

And in a “shoot the messenger” coup de grâce, the latest casualty in the war may be the office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) whose investigations have exposed waste, fraud, and mismanagement of billions of dollars spent by U.S. taxpayers in rebuilding Iraq.

<h3>In a stealth blow during a closed-door conference on a major defense bill, the Republican side of the House Armed Services Committee inserted a provision to shutdown the Special Inspector General (IG) office led by Stuart Bowen Jr.
</h3>
Tracking tax payer dollars
Bowen’s office opened in Januar 2004 with the task of tracking the $18 billion in U.S. taxpayer dollars initially allocated for Iraqi reconstruction. The Special IG office was supposed to be temporary, but then again so was the war.

The U.S. government’s plan was to execute reconstruction rapidly in Iraq — but many of the efforts have been stymied by the worsening security in the country.

“This was a waste of money because the contractors were ordered to go to Iraq to work, but they weren’t working,” explained Bowen (whose office will disappear in October 2007 unless critics of the termination prevail in having the office continue). Due to the deteriorating security situation, many contractors were forced to remain idle, but taxpayer dollars still had to pay for their food and housing while they waited to begin work in Iraq. “About $62 million was spent on overhead for contractors that only accomplished $26 million in construction work.”

By the end of September 2006, according to the latest SIGIR report, 100 percent of the $18.44 billion Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund (IRRF) has been “obligated” (or allocated) — and major U.S. spending is rapidly winding down. In three and a half years, over nine Congressional bills, U.S. taxpayers have paid $38.4 billion for Iraq reconstruction.

A bipartisan group led by Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, is seeking to keep the Special IG office in business.

“I strongly support the continuation of [Bowen’s] office as long as American tax dollars are being spent on Iraq reconstruction,” said Collins. “I am working with Senators Russ Feingold, John Warner and Joseph Lieberman and will propose legislation to extend the term of the SIGIR past the October 1, 2007, expiration date."

Money’s worth?
Have American taxpayers gotten their money's worth? Specific contractor abuses, such as overcharging and shoddy construction, have been well-publicized.

Many press accounts of the latest SIGIR report released Oct. 30 made particular note of the fact that the U.S. government lost track of weapons purchased with reconstruction funds for the Iraqi security forces. “There were a mixture of pistols and assault rifles,” said Bowen. “Primarily, 13,000 of them were semiautomatic nine millimeter pistols.” Where the missing weapons are is unknown.

But, in addition to the exposure of missing weapons, the SIGIR quarterly report and accompanying audit reports present one of the best assessments of U.S. progress in Iraqi reconstruction in specific sectors that is worth taking a closer look at.

Oil

* More than three and a half years after the U.S. invasion Iraq oil production is 12 percent below prewar levels (p. 36). Iraq currently pumps 2.3 million barrels a day, and exports 1.6 million of that.
* Iraq did not meet any of its total critical refined product targets in the latest quarter (p. 40), and continues to suffer from severe shortages in all fuels. (p.39)
* Because of smuggling and corruption, a thriving black market exists for fuel with Iraqis paying $4 per gallon, almost eight times the official price (p.44).

* Electric production is up only six percent above prewar levels (p. 24) despite major U.S. funding and 88 percent of U.S. projects completed.
* Attacks on electric lines in Baghdad on Oct. 20, 2006 reduced power in Baghdad to two hours a day for a week (p.4 ). Baghdad had less than five hours of electricity a day at the end of September (p. 26).
* The SIGIR report states: "repairing power lines is nearly impossible because of sniper attacks and death threats to repair crews." (p. 4)

Water & Sanitation

* U.S. projects have provided an estimated 4.6 million people with access to water, and 5.1 million people with access to sanitation, but a major challenge is to ensure that U.S. efforts are sustainable (p. 45).
* An example of sub-par Iraqi contractors can be seen in sanitation problems at the U.S.-funded Mosul Police Headquarters (p. 170-171). See site photo14 for a tree trunk that was painted white to mimic a concrete pillar rather than removed as the contract required.

Agriculture

* Agriculture supports 20 percent of the Iraqi workforce, but despite some rehabilitation USAID estimates Iraq's grain yields last summer were less than half the yields of neighboring countries (p. 52).

Schools Repair

* Only 48 percent of the Iraqi schools needing repair in 2003 have actually been repaired, but 100 percent of the U.S.-funding for education projects has been spent (p. 60).

Security & Justice

* More than 88 percent of the U.S.-IRRF funds for military and police forces have been spent to train and equip 312,900 Iraqi security forces (p.68). However, "sectarian divisions permeate the leadership ranks of the Iraqi Security Forces," (p.73), and "critical infrastructure remains a high-value target for insurgent attack." (p.75).
* “It’s going to cost $3.5 billion dollars to support the Iraqi army in the field next year,” Bowen told NBC News, “We were unable to determine in the course of our audit, and we tried, whether the Iraqi government has made provisions for this.”

Healthcare

* While two-thirds of the U.S. money allocated for health care projects has been spent, just over one-third (36 percent) of these projects have been completed, "progress has been impeded by security and management problems"(p.77).

Transportation

* In transportation, 88 percent of railway stations have been repaired, but "only a small number of trains continue to run nationwide because of security concerns." (p. 83)
* U.S. projects have rehabilitated five Iraqi airports, and traffic is increasing but "the rise is attributed to a recent increase in military" flights (p. 87).
* Currently, only military and charter flights are permitted in Iraqi airspace.

Top Contractors

* SIGIR reports the top contractor for the 3rd quarter was Bechtel, awarded $1.26 billion, with five others above $500 million each: Fluor-Amec, LLC, Parson Global Services, Inc, Parsons Iraq Joint Venture, Kellogg Brown & Root Services, Inc., and Washington Group International (p. 92).

Corruption

* Iraq's ability to attract international funds is impeded by a perception of government-wide corruption. The SIGIR report states, "Iraq ranks lower than Egypt, Syria, Iran, and other countries in the region that struggle with corruption" (p. 99).

International Donations vs. U.S. donations

* Non-U.S. donors have pledged $15 billion to Iraq reconstruction, less than 40 percent of the amount U.S. taxpayers have contributed (p. 105). It is not clear how much non-U.S. donors have actually contributed to meet their pledges, versus the $38 billion U.S. taxpayers have committed. But it is clear that Iraq reconstruction will increasingly rely on non-U.S. donors who are more skeptical of dealing with the Iraq government than with the Coalition's more transparent accounting.

The Big Picture

* SIGIR reports that: "security throughout Iraq remains a challenge to the management and oversight of many projects" (p. 122). For example, because of security concerns, inspectors could not visit the $2.23 million Al Karkh Courthouse in northwestern Baghdad, instead they had to rely on satellite imagery to view the courthouse complex from outer space (p. 160).

The reconstruction of Iraq is underway at enormous cost with an as yet uncertain future. The rebuilding of the country during a time of continued warfare has been fraught with danger and delays, cost overruns and corruption. And now that the Special Inspector General position is in peril, it will be even harder to determine whether the costs of trying to build the cornerstones for success in Iraq have been worth the price.
Carl Sears is an NBC News producer based out of Washington, D.C.

Thank god that the American voters removed the majority control of the congress from the folks who, just before last fall's elections,

Quote:

.......In a stealth blow during a closed-door conference on a major defense bill, the Republican side of the House Armed Services Committee inserted a provision to shutdown the Special Inspector General (IG) office led by Stuart Bowen Jr......

If the republicans on that committee had been successful in their stealth effort to eliminate Stuart Bowen's inspections, powerclown would not have had the OP article to post.....and downplay the significance of,

Quote:

Originally Posted by powerclown

And different areas are receiving differing levels of craftmanship. But slowly, surely, they are being assimilated. I for one, as a taxpayer, would like to know if there are plans somewhere for a KFC franchise in Baghdad, for example. I mean how far are we going we this? Will Iraq be the new Japan of the 21st century? Or the new Somalia?

......and Seaver would not have had the opportunity to "weigh in", on the reason things are the way the US has made them, in Iraq.....

Quote:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/03/wo...rssnyt&emc=rss
By JAMES GLANZ
Published: November 3, 2006

<i>Investigations led by a Republican lawyer named Stuart W. Bowen Jr. in Iraq have sent American occupation officials to jail on bribery and conspiracy charges, exposed disastrously poor construction work by well-connected companies like Halliburton and Parsons, and discovered that the military did not properly track hundreds of thousands of weapons it shipped to Iraqi security forces.</i>

Christoph Bangert/Polaris, for The New York Times

Mr. Bowen’s office has inspected and audited taxpayer-financed projects like this prison in Nasiriya, Iraq.

And tucked away in a huge military authorization bill that President Bush signed two weeks ago is what some of Mr. Bowen’s supporters believe is his reward for repeatedly embarrassing the administration: a pink slip.

The order comes in the form of an obscure provision that terminates his federal oversight agency, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, on Oct. 1, 2007. The clause was inserted by the Republican side of the House Armed Services Committee over the objections of Democratic counterparts during a closed-door conference, and it has generated surprise and some outrage among lawmakers who say they had no idea it was in the final legislation.

Mr. Bowen’s office, which began operation in January 2004 to examine reconstruction money spent in Iraq, was always envisioned as a temporary organization, permitted to continue its work only as long as Congress saw fit. Some advocates for the office, in fact, have regarded its lack of a permanent bureaucracy as the key to its aggressiveness and independence.

But as the implications of the provision in the new bill have become clear, opposition has been building on both sides of the political aisle. One point of contention is exactly when the office would have naturally run its course without a hard end date.

The bipartisan opposition may not be unexpected given Mr. Bowen’s Republican credentials — he served under George W. Bush both in Texas and in the White House — and deep public skepticism on the Bush administration’s conduct of the war.

Susan Collins, a Maine Republican who followed the bill closely as chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, says that she still does not know how the provision made its way into what is called the conference report, which reconciles differences between House and Senate versions of a bill.....

ubertuber · 05-01-2007, 06:19 AM

host: I didn't see a single word in Seaver's post about dismissal. To me, it read more like an explanation or a way to begin to understand the magnitude of the problem. That's vastly different.

Hopefully Seaver will clarify.

host · 05-01-2007, 06:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ubertuber

host: I didn't see a single word in Seaver's post about dismissal. To me, it read more like an explanation or a way to begin to understand the magnitude of the problem. That's vastly different.

Hopefully Seaver will clarify.

uber, I've supported my points...... if Seaver was not trying to "assign blame", i.e. deflect this story of the failure of republican leadership by the US administration which he consistently backs, away from republicans who tried to sneak in a provision, when they controlled the relevant congressional committee, to end inspections and reports of inspection results....just like the one in the thread OP....deflect what has happened onto the backs of Iraqis and their "tribal culture"....what is it that you believe he was doing?

I find the denial objectionable....."Libby committed no crime", "outing Plame did no damage....she was "fair game", "the news media intentionally avoids reporting the good news in Iraq", "the news media is liberal"...... I counter it when I see it, because it's BS, and it interferes with identifying and solving problems, and that is why it is thrown out in front of us, in the first place!

dc_dux · 05-01-2007, 06:49 AM

Whatever happened to:

"The oil revenues of Iraq could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years�We're dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.
- Paul Wolfowitz, [Congressional Testimony, 3/27/03]

"Iraq, unlike Afghanistan, is a rather wealthy country. Iraq has tremendous resources that belong to the Iraqi people. And so there are a variety of means that Iraq has to be able to shoulder much of the burden for their own reconstruction."
-- White House Spokesman Ari Fleischer, 2/18/03

Aside from the "shock and awe" of the initial invasion which led to the "mission accomplished" declaration by Bush (4 years ago today), nearly every assumption of this administration has been wrong and their errors magnified by incompetence, mismanagement and/or corruption.

Numerous reconstruction failures and charges of fraud as identified by the SIGIR costing the US taxpayers $billions, thousands of US weapons and $millions of US funds missing, questionable success in the training of Iraqi security forces (Pentagon prevents military officers from testifying before House panel) Iraqi children facing the worst health crisis in 50 years and more than 1 million Iraqis displaced from their homes (the big picture), a government that is barely functional that has not met one US benchmark in 2+ years.....

Has this administration done ANYTHING right since they "successfully" invaded Iraq?

ubertuber · 05-01-2007, 06:51 AM

As I wrote in post 9, it read to me as though Seaver was positing about what may have (or part of what likely has?) gone wrong with this reconstruction effort. That's what I just said, and I think it is the most reasonable interpretation of what he wrote in post 6.

I suppose you could choose to read it in a way that makes it look like you guys are taking sides - but I don't see the point.

Also as I wrote in post 9, hopefully Seaver will clarify his post more - why he posted it and where it leads. Until then, I'm not interested in picking fights.

roachboy · 05-01-2007, 07:37 AM

at the very least, this is yet another demonstration of the fact that privatization=efficiency is nothing more than a neoliberal pipe dream, particularly when it comes to infrastructure. so there is a clear failure in this: that of the rumsfeld model for the american military, the application of the "logic" of lean production to it. this seems to me more a structural problem playing out than yet another seemingly run-of-the-mill bush administration fuck up: this seems a demonstration that the entire model american conservatives have been advocating does not work at the most basic levels; that is was and is naive, based on a loopy sense of what is "given" at any point--by that i mean if you look at markets or the social contexts within which they function using a time-slice approach--a decontextualized snapshots of the present state-of-affairs--which is the only way i can work out that neoliberalism is able to collapse infrastructure into an a priori and think about it in terms of management of a variant of natural resource rather than as a sector that is only with the greatest of problems integrated into the lunacy of "free markets"---this approach is incoherent conceptually, naive historically, and a fiasco in practice.

personally, i think that the bush people are sawing the branch off upon which they sit at more levels than we think: this seems to go well beyond particular incompetences (in conception, in process, in execution--problems that would seem to provide ample room for whatever seaver ends up bringing into this by way of clarification of his earlier post) and involves the entire retro-model of economic activity and relations to economic activity itself.
all you have to do to see this is position this information against the backdrop not of the iraq debacle (though this is damning enough) but against the litany of parallel failures in the context of structural adjustment programs--eg the failure of suez lyonnaise des eaux to manage chilean water supply (santiago in particular): problems in bolivia involving the same kind of privatization moves, etc.---in this way, you can to some extent bracket the chaos in iraq and see something other in it.

Seaver · 05-01-2007, 09:56 PM

Quote:

Is the tuition that you pay for your "middle east studies", reasonable or more burdensome, and do you ever "Picture yourself on a boat on a river With tangerine trees and marmalade skies"....I suspect that the name of that river is "denial"....

It is the corrupt US administration and it's political party that "killed Iraq", Seaver, and they've already unsuccessfully tried to "shoot the messenger", their own Stuart Bowen Jr.

Host, you of all people should never throw out the denial sticker. I could dig out many posts of yours which more than deserve it, but I give you more respect than that.

Quote:

host: I didn't see a single word in Seaver's post about dismissal. To me, it read more like an explanation or a way to begin to understand the magnitude of the problem. That's vastly different.

The problem sits on both sides of the fence. What I was pointing out is we can't simply look through books and see where every dollar went.

We are following the method which has been used in the region for the past couple-hundred years. Even Saddam just accepted and respected the tradition of corruption. During the Iran/Iraq War Saddam awarded $X for every person a tribal chief supplied to the war. They knew damn well they were paying for soldiers who either didn't exist or were still at home, it was simply accepted as a reward for compliance. Saddam granted huge construction projects afterwards for his palaces, in which he was fully aware he was being charged for items that were never used or even existed, it was simply the culture.

Do you believe that we ship professional Americans to repair the electrical lines? No, we have maybe one manager and rely on the Iraqis. The corruption is guaranteed in situations like this, as to keep the good will of the tribal chiefs we pay a little more.

You said Will that they still don't have power. Well think of it, how hard is it really to pull power in your neighborhood? You shoot one transformer and entire blocks go out. You throw a $2 metal chain over the electrical lines, and then snipe workers who come to repair it. This is a huge problem which does not corrolate to how fast our repair technicians can get power up after a storm.

I'm not talking about the oil fields, in which Haliburton is the ONLY company which could pull it off in the first place. They have no-bid contracts because no other company in the world (aside from a French owned one.. yeah right) is suited for such massive undertakings. There's a reason why Haliburton was awarded no-bid contracts under Clinton for Yugoslavia, Somalia, etc. They are the ones who can pull it off.

04-30-2007, 10:14 PM	#6 (permalink)
Seaver Junkie Location: Fort Worth, TX	I've done a lot of study on the Middle East, and as one of my professors put it (even before the conflicts) it takes $10,000 to do a $50 job in many areas. Corruption isn't an issue, it's a way of life in many regions. The reason it's easy to point fingers is we are used to a system of book-keeping which lists every cost and expenditure. Culturally, these regions have always been given a set amount of money and then assumed that the tribal elder's children, friends, militias, etc. etc. would skim off their share. We are always told that we need to understand the cultures of foreigners, and we need to adapt to their ways. This is one of them, by allowing the tribal elders to skim their share we ensure good will and cooperation. It also gives us a stick to the carrot, in that we can always give the contracts to rival tribes. __________________ "Smite the rocks with the rod of knowledge, and fountains of unstinted wealth will gush forth." - Ashbel Smith as he laid the first cornerstone of the University of Texas

05-01-2007, 06:19 AM	#9 (permalink)
ubertuber spudly Location: Ellay	host: I didn't see a single word in Seaver's post about dismissal. To me, it read more like an explanation or a way to begin to understand the magnitude of the problem. That's vastly different. Hopefully Seaver will clarify. __________________ Cogito ergo spud -- I think, therefore I yam

05-01-2007, 06:49 AM	#11 (permalink)
dc_dux Location: Washington DC	Whatever happened to: "The oil revenues of Iraq could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years�We're dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon. - Paul Wolfowitz, [Congressional Testimony, 3/27/03] "Iraq, unlike Afghanistan, is a rather wealthy country. Iraq has tremendous resources that belong to the Iraqi people. And so there are a variety of means that Iraq has to be able to shoulder much of the burden for their own reconstruction." -- White House Spokesman Ari Fleischer, 2/18/03 Aside from the "shock and awe" of the initial invasion which led to the "mission accomplished" declaration by Bush (4 years ago today), nearly every assumption of this administration has been wrong and their errors magnified by incompetence, mismanagement and/or corruption. Numerous reconstruction failures and charges of fraud as identified by the SIGIR costing the US taxpayers $billions, thousands of US weapons and $millions of US funds missing, questionable success in the training of Iraqi security forces (Pentagon prevents military officers from testifying before House panel) Iraqi children facing the worst health crisis in 50 years and more than 1 million Iraqis displaced from their homes (the big picture), a government that is barely functional that has not met one US benchmark in 2+ years..... Has this administration done ANYTHING right since they "successfully" invaded Iraq? __________________ "The perfect is the enemy of the good." ~ Voltaire Last edited by dc_dux; 05-01-2007 at 06:58 AM..

05-01-2007, 06:51 AM	#12 (permalink)
ubertuber spudly Location: Ellay	As I wrote in post 9, it read to me as though Seaver was positing about what may have (or part of what likely has?) gone wrong with this reconstruction effort. That's what I just said, and I think it is the most reasonable interpretation of what he wrote in post 6. I suppose you could choose to read it in a way that makes it look like you guys are taking sides - but I don't see the point. Also as I wrote in post 9, hopefully Seaver will clarify his post more - why he posted it and where it leads. Until then, I'm not interested in picking fights. __________________ Cogito ergo spud -- I think, therefore I yam

05-01-2007, 07:37 AM	#13 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	at the very least, this is yet another demonstration of the fact that privatization=efficiency is nothing more than a neoliberal pipe dream, particularly when it comes to infrastructure. so there is a clear failure in this: that of the rumsfeld model for the american military, the application of the "logic" of lean production to it. this seems to me more a structural problem playing out than yet another seemingly run-of-the-mill bush administration fuck up: this seems a demonstration that the entire model american conservatives have been advocating does not work at the most basic levels; that is was and is naive, based on a loopy sense of what is "given" at any point--by that i mean if you look at markets or the social contexts within which they function using a time-slice approach--a decontextualized snapshots of the present state-of-affairs--which is the only way i can work out that neoliberalism is able to collapse infrastructure into an a priori and think about it in terms of management of a variant of natural resource rather than as a sector that is only with the greatest of problems integrated into the lunacy of "free markets"---this approach is incoherent conceptually, naive historically, and a fiasco in practice. personally, i think that the bush people are sawing the branch off upon which they sit at more levels than we think: this seems to go well beyond particular incompetences (in conception, in process, in execution--problems that would seem to provide ample room for whatever seaver ends up bringing into this by way of clarification of his earlier post) and involves the entire retro-model of economic activity and relations to economic activity itself. all you have to do to see this is position this information against the backdrop not of the iraq debacle (though this is damning enough) but against the litany of parallel failures in the context of structural adjustment programs--eg the failure of suez lyonnaise des eaux to manage chilean water supply (santiago in particular): problems in bolivia involving the same kind of privatization moves, etc.---in this way, you can to some extent bracket the chaos in iraq and see something other in it. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

04-30-2007, 07:27 PM	#2 (permalink)
ratbastid Darth Papa Location: Yonder	So the whole "reconstruction" thing is just for show. Somehow that resonates with my sense of it.

04-30-2007, 07:40 PM	#3 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	If they built quality stuff over there, how would the crooks shave billions off the top? I'm glad the NYTimes decided to report on this. I'd like for every news outlet in the world to cover it 24/7 until this shitstorm stops.

04-30-2007, 07:52 PM	#4 (permalink)
powerclown Junkie Location: Detroit, MI	And different areas are receiving differing levels of craftmanship. But slowly, surely, they are being assimilated. I for one, as a taxpayer, would like to know if there are plans somewhere for a KFC franchise in Baghdad, for example. I mean how far are we going we this? Will Iraq be the new Japan of the 21st century? Or the new Somalia?

04-30-2007, 08:16 PM	#5 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	Afghanistan, actually. Or imagine Vietnam with decades of Islamic sectarian violence. Kinda like that.