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Iraq Reconstruction Cost U.S. $60 Billion
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/06/iraq-reconstruction_n_2819899.html?ncid=webmail10
WASHINGTON -- In nine years of war in Iraq, 4,448 Americans died and 32,221 were wounded in battle, leaving behind a deeply divided country steeped in corruption. And despite a $60 billion U.S effort to rebuild Iraq, life for most Iraqis has not improved significantly, according to a bitter and regretful retrospective by Iraqi officials and U.S. diplomats, military officers and politicians.
Their views come with the final report of the Special U.S. Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, released Wednesday. Congress set up the SIGIR office in November of 2003 to monitor the vast sums of Iraqi and U.S. money being spent by the U.S. occupation authorities in Baghdad.
Over nine years, Inspector General Stuart W. Bowen and his staff relentlessly tracked down what happened to the $146 billion in Iraqi money and the $60 billion in U.S. funds -- much of it airlifted to Iraq in pallets of shrink-wrapped $50 bills. Despite the claims of President George W. Bush and other U.S. officials that the United States would rebuild an even better Iraq after the March 2003 invasion and occupation, the money "underperformed," Bowen noted dryly in the report.
"There was misspending of money," said Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, in one of the colossal understatements contained in the massive report.
The one bright spot, the report said, was the $20.2 billion the United States spent to train and equip Iraqi security forces, which have managed to keep Iraq relatively stable despite rising political tensions and sectarian violence.
But apart from the detailed investigations and assessments in the final SIGIR report, it is the observations of senior Iraqi and American officials that are most damning. Bowen and his staff talked with Maliki and Iraqi politicians and jurists, former Ambassador Ryan Crocker, former Gen. David Petraeus and Gen. Ray Odierno, now U.S. army chief of staff.
Bush, former Vice President **** Cheney, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and L. Paul Bremer -- who ran Iraq in the crucial years of 2003 and 2004 as head of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) -- did not offer their own assessments.
There is little chance that the United States, given the difficult lessons of its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, will embark on a major invasion and military occupation any time soon. But if it did, the ineptness and hubris of the U.S.-led reconstruction effort will serve as a guide to how it shouldn't be done.
"The level of fraud, waste and abuse in Iraq was appalling," Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) told SIGIR. She said she had urged the White House to make careful loans to Iraq for reconstruction, but Bush had insisted on a "no strings attached" approach instead.
A senior Iraqi bank auditor, Dr. Abdul Basit Turki al-Sae'ed, who has led many investigations of Iraqi government spending, said the flood of U.S. dollars into the country had fostered a "triangle of political patronage" among Iraq's political parties, sectarian groups and government officials that sparked corruption and terrorism.
Former Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Ja'afari said Iraq's oil profits, which in 2003 and 2004 were spent by Bremer's CPA, were "gravely mismanaged," eroding the country's educational and medical facilities and sapping its ability to provide such basics as electricity.
U.S. Army Chief of Staff Odierno, who commanded in Iraq for six of the war's nine years, said in retrospect it would have been better to have held off major U.S. investments in reconstruction projects until five or six years into the war, when U.S. troops and U.S.-trained and equipped Iraqi forces were beginning to bring the violence under control.
In 2004, for instance, the U.S. launched an ambitious project to build a sewer and water system in Fallujah, a center of intense and bloody sectarian fighting. Originally slated to cost $35 million and take 18 months to complete, the project so far has cost $195 million and is scheduled to be finished in 2014.
Raheem al-Ugaili, a judge and head of Iraq's Commission on Public Integrity until 2011, pursued dozens of corruption investigations involving U.S.-funded projects until he was fired for reaching too deeply into Iraq's political elite.
"Vast amounts of money were wasted without attaining actual intended results," al-Ugaili told SIGIR. He identified one major problem common to U.S. reconstruction efforts: Americans excluded Iraqis from the planning and prioritizing of projects.
But worse than simply wasted money and incomplete projects was the culture of corruption left behind. "Sketching out a grim picture of Iraq's anti-corruption institutions in full retreat, the judge asserted that the level of kickbacks to [Iraq government] officials and the volume of money laundering continue to grow," SIGIR reports.
That culture has seeped into the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan as well, according to Ryan Crocker, who served as ambassador to Afghanistan from 2011 to 2012 after leading the political-military campaign in Iraq from 2007 to 2009 with Petraeus. Corruption, cost over-runs and unfinished construction of U.S.-funded projects in Afghanistan are documented in regular reports from the U.S. Special Inspector General For Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR), also a congressionally mandated watchdog.
Crocker told SIGAR that the United States had done a better job in Afghanistan in including local Afghans in the planning process. But as in Iraq, he said, the United States had launched ambitious projects for which Afghans had neither the expertise nor the money to operate.
For instance, he said Afghanistan lacks the money to maintain the new road system built with reconstruction funds.
"We're already seeing them crumbling," he said.
WASHINGTON -- In nine years of war in Iraq, 4,448 Americans died and 32,221 were wounded in battle, leaving behind a deeply divided country steeped in corruption. And despite a $60 billion U.S effort to rebuild Iraq, life for most Iraqis has not improved significantly, according to a bitter and regretful retrospective by Iraqi officials and U.S. diplomats, military officers and politicians.
Their views come with the final report of the Special U.S. Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, released Wednesday. Congress set up the SIGIR office in November of 2003 to monitor the vast sums of Iraqi and U.S. money being spent by the U.S. occupation authorities in Baghdad.
Over nine years, Inspector General Stuart W. Bowen and his staff relentlessly tracked down what happened to the $146 billion in Iraqi money and the $60 billion in U.S. funds -- much of it airlifted to Iraq in pallets of shrink-wrapped $50 bills. Despite the claims of President George W. Bush and other U.S. officials that the United States would rebuild an even better Iraq after the March 2003 invasion and occupation, the money "underperformed," Bowen noted dryly in the report.
"There was misspending of money," said Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, in one of the colossal understatements contained in the massive report.
The one bright spot, the report said, was the $20.2 billion the United States spent to train and equip Iraqi security forces, which have managed to keep Iraq relatively stable despite rising political tensions and sectarian violence.
But apart from the detailed investigations and assessments in the final SIGIR report, it is the observations of senior Iraqi and American officials that are most damning. Bowen and his staff talked with Maliki and Iraqi politicians and jurists, former Ambassador Ryan Crocker, former Gen. David Petraeus and Gen. Ray Odierno, now U.S. army chief of staff.
Bush, former Vice President **** Cheney, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and L. Paul Bremer -- who ran Iraq in the crucial years of 2003 and 2004 as head of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) -- did not offer their own assessments.
There is little chance that the United States, given the difficult lessons of its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, will embark on a major invasion and military occupation any time soon. But if it did, the ineptness and hubris of the U.S.-led reconstruction effort will serve as a guide to how it shouldn't be done.
"The level of fraud, waste and abuse in Iraq was appalling," Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) told SIGIR. She said she had urged the White House to make careful loans to Iraq for reconstruction, but Bush had insisted on a "no strings attached" approach instead.
A senior Iraqi bank auditor, Dr. Abdul Basit Turki al-Sae'ed, who has led many investigations of Iraqi government spending, said the flood of U.S. dollars into the country had fostered a "triangle of political patronage" among Iraq's political parties, sectarian groups and government officials that sparked corruption and terrorism.
Former Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Ja'afari said Iraq's oil profits, which in 2003 and 2004 were spent by Bremer's CPA, were "gravely mismanaged," eroding the country's educational and medical facilities and sapping its ability to provide such basics as electricity.
U.S. Army Chief of Staff Odierno, who commanded in Iraq for six of the war's nine years, said in retrospect it would have been better to have held off major U.S. investments in reconstruction projects until five or six years into the war, when U.S. troops and U.S.-trained and equipped Iraqi forces were beginning to bring the violence under control.
In 2004, for instance, the U.S. launched an ambitious project to build a sewer and water system in Fallujah, a center of intense and bloody sectarian fighting. Originally slated to cost $35 million and take 18 months to complete, the project so far has cost $195 million and is scheduled to be finished in 2014.
Raheem al-Ugaili, a judge and head of Iraq's Commission on Public Integrity until 2011, pursued dozens of corruption investigations involving U.S.-funded projects until he was fired for reaching too deeply into Iraq's political elite.
"Vast amounts of money were wasted without attaining actual intended results," al-Ugaili told SIGIR. He identified one major problem common to U.S. reconstruction efforts: Americans excluded Iraqis from the planning and prioritizing of projects.
But worse than simply wasted money and incomplete projects was the culture of corruption left behind. "Sketching out a grim picture of Iraq's anti-corruption institutions in full retreat, the judge asserted that the level of kickbacks to [Iraq government] officials and the volume of money laundering continue to grow," SIGIR reports.
That culture has seeped into the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan as well, according to Ryan Crocker, who served as ambassador to Afghanistan from 2011 to 2012 after leading the political-military campaign in Iraq from 2007 to 2009 with Petraeus. Corruption, cost over-runs and unfinished construction of U.S.-funded projects in Afghanistan are documented in regular reports from the U.S. Special Inspector General For Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR), also a congressionally mandated watchdog.
Crocker told SIGAR that the United States had done a better job in Afghanistan in including local Afghans in the planning process. But as in Iraq, he said, the United States had launched ambitious projects for which Afghans had neither the expertise nor the money to operate.
For instance, he said Afghanistan lacks the money to maintain the new road system built with reconstruction funds.
"We're already seeing them crumbling," he said.
The problem with our "humanitarian aid" is that it "disappeared". They cannot track it down or the money from the previous Iraqi government.
That to me is highly suspicious...
Back to the humanitarian aid. We went into that country and tore it apart. Many of our people died but we killed many innocent people looking for the "weapons of mass destruction" that did not exist. The war was a sham and we destroyed their country. Bush promised to rebuild it...enough said on that.
However to honor that promise to help the Iraqi people rebuild the lives we tore down is not charity, it is an obligation.
Apart from that, I am all for tossing them out on their bottoms and starting fresh. Congress, that is. :-)
That to me is highly suspicious...
Back to the humanitarian aid. We went into that country and tore it apart. Many of our people died but we killed many innocent people looking for the "weapons of mass destruction" that did not exist. The war was a sham and we destroyed their country. Bush promised to rebuild it...enough said on that.
However to honor that promise to help the Iraqi people rebuild the lives we tore down is not charity, it is an obligation.
Apart from that, I am all for tossing them out on their bottoms and starting fresh. Congress, that is. :-)
"Republicans, Democrats, they are supposed to be humans and should be able to see the harm they have done and continue to do."
I think that is the problem. We are human and think that these humanitarian efforts work wonders, all the while we are turning out backs on ourselves.
I still don't know how we can really help other countries when we can't even take care of ourselves. Oh well.... its just money. We can print more.
I think that is the problem. We are human and think that these humanitarian efforts work wonders, all the while we are turning out backs on ourselves.
I still don't know how we can really help other countries when we can't even take care of ourselves. Oh well.... its just money. We can print more.
ha, say hope.
I fear their future more than ours. If something doesnt change the people will oust the lot of them I think. Or should I say I hope?
While here we are ready to furlough all federal jobs, cut school lunches for children all will feel the cuts except the highest officials, and we send millions to Egypt the people in charge are idiots.
They say we have no money yet they continue to help everyone but the US
How they can not see what they are doing is beyond me.
Republicans, Democrats, they are supposed to be humans and should be able to see the harm they have done and continue to do.
If they can't come to an agreement I fear for the future of all of us.
They say we have no money yet they continue to help everyone but the US
How they can not see what they are doing is beyond me.
Republicans, Democrats, they are supposed to be humans and should be able to see the harm they have done and continue to do.
If they can't come to an agreement I fear for the future of all of us.
"...what happened to the $146 billion in Iraqi money and the $60 billion in U.S. funds -- much of it airlifted to Iraq in pallets of shrink-wrapped $50 bills..."
That's GENIUS!
Whose brilliant idea was it, to send the money all at once, and in the form of CASH???
Government brilliance at its best. What about sending it $250M at a time, and when they needed more, sending another pallet?
A flight between the U.S. and Iraq only takes 13-14 hours[1], so if they needed more, the funds are but a phone call /text/email away.
Our government is run by MORONS.
[1]http://www.blurtit.com/q967792.html
That's GENIUS!
Whose brilliant idea was it, to send the money all at once, and in the form of CASH???
Government brilliance at its best. What about sending it $250M at a time, and when they needed more, sending another pallet?
A flight between the U.S. and Iraq only takes 13-14 hours[1], so if they needed more, the funds are but a phone call /text/email away.
Our government is run by MORONS.
[1]http://www.blurtit.com/q967792.html
Haliburton ugh.
Bush Jr. never had the intelligence to oversee tying his own shoes. Look at Halliburton and all the other contractors who fleeced the American taxpayers. **** Cheney's croneys.
All contracts are public records so you can search for them and probably get a FIA for them but I would assume that was already done because people complained about no-bid contracts that some companies got for the reconstruction.
This was not handled well by Bush. Even though others were in charge, his oversite and the buck stops with him.
This was not handled well by Bush. Even though others were in charge, his oversite and the buck stops with him.
Well if there are any, we will never know about it. Thats for sure.
A budget has to be passed 1st for anything to help with it. The number you don't hear and I don't know is how much $ the government took in from contracts form the war.
Yes 3 trillion boy that would help out our budget big time.
Yes they should have insisted on oil funds to help pay and I think I heard the war itself cost us something like 3 Trillion? Not sure if that includes the reconstruction tho.
That $250M got me very upset.
America should have insisted oil funds to help pay for reconstruction.
America should have insisted oil funds to help pay for reconstruction.
I guess I'm an equal opportunity basher today because personally I just get tired of seeing so much of our U.S. tax dollars being sent to foreign country's. So much corruption in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq. I know we have some of our nations best interests in what goes on over there but I for one sure am tired of reading about millions and billions of U.S. tax dollars going into some jokers pocket or funding the Muslim Brotherhood like the recent $250mil going to Egypt with a sequester going on in our own country.
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