WASHINGTON - The reconstruction of Iraq is
failing rapidly, despite repeated claims of
progress by the George W Bush administration,
according to a number of US officials and reports
released recently.
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. This view was echoed by Stuart W Bowen Jr,
special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction,
in a congressional hearing.
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.
According to the
Government Accountability Office (GAO), a
congressional watchdog agency, about US$30 billion
was authorized through August 2005 to rebuild
Iraq's infrastructure and train and equip its
security forces. But Bowen said Washington would
have to be more realistic about what can actually
be spent of that amount.
"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.
The GAO itself says that only $13
billion of the $30 billion has actually been
disbursed so far. "The existence of this gap may
subject the US to criticism for not fulfilling
what was perceived as a promised number of
projects," Bowen said.
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.
"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."
When the Bush
administration asked Congress to appropriate over
$20 billion for reconstruction efforts in 2003, it
promised to use the money to provide clean
drinking water to 90% of Iraqis, boost power
production significantly above pre-war levels, and
restore oil production to pre-war levels.
But oversight agencies like the GAO and
Inspectors General (IGs) have published more than
80 reports on Iraq reconstruction and other
aspects of US support for post-war Iraq, many of
them critical.
The GAO said that even in
the case of completed projects, the
Washington-backed Iraqi government had been unable
to sustain rebuilt infrastructure due to shortages
of power, trained staff and supplies.
As
of July, water and sanitation projects worth $52
million either were not operating or were
operating at low capacity due to these problems,
GAO said.
Christopher Shays, chairman of
the Government Reform Sub-Committee on National
Security in the US House of Representatives, said
that congress is witnessing a rise in the cost of
projects even though many of them have not been
completed.
"Electric and water projects
are being scaled back, while estimates of the
costs to complete the same projects continue to
escalate," Shays said.
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 to pay private security
contractors and to train and equip Iraqi forces
more rapidly.
Initial estimates of
security costs have nearly tripled from less than
10% of total project expenses to almost 30%.
A number of US 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.
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.
Some of the official reports say
that US 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.
Waxman
also criticized what he called the
administration's "flawed contracting approach".
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.
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.
But
it appears that many US 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.
"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."
