ViceZilla’s Views

In another indication of how poorly the Bush Administration is managing the occupation of Iraq, The New York Times today reported that seven out of eight projects previously declared as successes, were in fact no longer operational.

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 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.

At the airport, crucially important for the functioning of the country, inspectors found that while $11.8 million had been spent on new electrical generators, $8.6 million worth were no longer functioning.

The list goes on, Expensive hospital equipment, water purification systems; even a barracks for an Iraqi Special Forces unit lay in waste.

Granted the total cost of $150 million for the eight projects inspected is a drop in the bucket compared to the total $30 billion the US has committed to the rebuilding program. But 7 out of 8 projects in the initial inspection that are a total waste is not a very good indication of how the program is being managed.

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, told a news conference in Baghdad late 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.”

I would beg to differ that 7 out of 8 projects that are non-functional can hardly be considered a success.

Of course as is usual in the Bush administration, everybody is pointing fingers at somebody else for the failures.

New York Times Story Here

Tags: Bush Administration, War in Iraq //