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Published April 30, 2008 10:20 pm - Imagine that you’ve hired a contractor to build a new house for you. The contractor pours the foundation, puts up the framework and then heads for the hills, sticking you with the bill and an unfinished house.
In our view: What a waste
Imagine that you’ve hired a contractor to build a new house for you.
The contractor pours the foundation, puts up the framework and then heads for the hills, sticking you with the bill and an unfinished house.
Sure, the scenario sounds ludicrous, but it’s happening all too frequently in Iraq.
An audit, released earlier this week by the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, found that U.S. taxpayers have footed the bill for more than $100 billion in construction projects, some of which were never completed.
Delays, poor performance and other factors were among the causes of some projects that were terminated amid construction, according to The Associated Press. Most troubling, however, is that the government has modified the contracts in many cases, showing the projects to be complete when they’re anything but.
For example, delays in 2006 ended construction on a $50 million children’s hospital in Basra when construction by Bechtel Corp. was only 35 percent complete. But through the “descoping” process — changing the scope of the work by modifying the contract — a U.S. database of reconstruction contracts in Iraq notes the project as complete.
Last year, congressional investigators said that one of every six reconstruction dollars paid to contractors in Iraq was questionable — to the tune of $10 billion.
Several senators are working on legislation that would restrict future reconstruction dollars to loans to the Iraqi government rather than grants, and would also require Baghdad to reimburse American troops for the fuel being used.
We believe this is not only a good idea, but also long overdue.
No matter what your position on the war in Iraq, this kind of wasteful spending — and attempts to mask it — are unacceptable.
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