The Empire 163

'CORRUPTION:
More US Money Wasted in Iraq, Audit Finds
By Emad Mekay
Inter Press Service

Washington - Dozens of millions of dollars originally slated for the reconstruction and security of Iraq have been squandered on luxury items like an Olympic-sized swimming pool, VIP trailers, and buildings that were never or rarely used, a U.S. government watchdog says.
In eight new audits carried out over the past quarter alone, the U.S. Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) Stuart Bowen indicated that "corruption continues to plague Iraq" and that "the security environment has continued to deteriorate."
The audits, submitted to Congress Wednesday, reviewed U.S. efforts to support the capacity development of Iraq's ministries, as well as the State Department's management of funding for Iraqi police training, a study of medical equipment purchased to support the primary healthcare centres, and a statistical summary of security costs for major U.S. contractors in Iraq.
Among the examples of waste documented in the 579-page report is that as part of a contract awarded to DynCorp International between July 2004 and June 2006, the State Department paid 43.8 million dollars for manufacturing and temporary storage of a residential camp that has never been used.
That sum included 4.2 million dollars for unauthorised work that included relocating the residential camp to outside of the Adnan Palace grounds, building an additional 20 VIP trailers, and constructing an Olympic-size swimming pool on the palace grounds.
The State Department may have also spent another 36.4 million dollars on weapons and equipment, including armoured vehicles, body armour and communications equipment, that cannot be accounted for because "invoices were vague and there was no backup documentation".
The audit also found that a project for the Baghdad Police College suffered a variety of shortfalls, including poor construction quality, budget overruns and the delivery of unfinished facilities.
"Anticorruption institutions in Iraq are fragmented, and there does not appear to be an internal Iraqi consensus about how these institutions should interact," said the report.
The report also pointed a finger at the deteriorating security situation, saying it is "hindering progress in all reconstruction sectors and threatening the overall reconstruction effort."
It concludes that infrastructure security remains vulnerable. Power lines are attacked regularly, and the northern oil pipelines are largely inoperable because of sabotage. Iraqi repair crews are frequently unable to work because of repeated attacks.'

Lees verder: http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=36392 Of:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/020107P.shtml