WP: Billion-Dollar Start Falls Short in Iraq

[DeepModem Mom]

Billion-Dollar Start Falls Short in Iraq
U.S. Officials Worry About Leaving Baghdad Without Basic Services
By John Ward Anderson and Bassam Sebti
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, April 16, 2006; A11

BAGHDAD -- On the southern outskirts of Baghdad, a sewage treatment plant that was repaired with $13.5 million in U.S. funds sits idle while all of the raw waste from the western half of Baghdad is dumped into the Tigris River, where many of the capital's 7 million residents get their drinking water.

Adjacent to the Karkh sewage plant is Iraq's most advanced sanitary landfill, a new, 20-acre, $32 million dump -- also paid for by the United States -- with a liner to prevent groundwater contamination. It has not had a load of garbage dropped off since the manager of the sewer plant was killed four months ago. Iraqis consider the access roads too dangerous, and Iraqi police rarely venture into the area, a haven for insurgents who regularly lob mortar shells across the city into the Green Zone less than six miles away.

The mothballed projects highlight a growing concern among U.S. officials here: whether Iraqis have the capacity to maintain, operate and protect the more than 8,000 reconstruction projects, costing $18.4 billion, that the United States has completed or plans to finish in the next few years, which include digging roadside drainage ditches, refurbishing hospitals and schools, and constructing electric power plants.

"The United States must ensure that the billions of dollars it has already invested in Iraq's infrastructure are not wasted," said an October report by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, citing what it said were "limitations in the Iraqis' capacity to maintain and operate reconstructed facilities."

For example, the report said, "as of June 2005, approximately $52 million of the $200 million in completed large-scale water and sanitation projects either were not operating or were operating at lower capacity due to looting of key equipment and shortages of reliable power, trained Iraqi staff, and required chemicals and supplies."...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/15/AR2006041501086_pf.html

[grasswire]

1. ...as America's own infrastructure crumbles....

This is truly sickening.

[rodeodance]

2. Wjem we ;leave-the capacity will be there.

[xchrom]

3. we waste our money on waste projects?

metaphor much?

[SpiralHawk]

4. "As long as Halliburton makes a profit, it's ok." Deadeye Dick Cheney

(Pay not attention to my 5 military deferments)

[grytpype]

5. Everything we tried in Iraq has failed.

A miserable, total failure.

[Zorra]

6. A prime example of republican fiscal irresponsibility, incompetence,

and outright stupidity.

Iraq is like a bottomless pit that republicans pour our money into, draining our resources and wekening our nation.

Our dumbass, corrupt republican leadership has got to go before we reach the tipping point.

[LynnTheDem]

7. "whether Iraqis have the capacity " ...Jebus fucking Cripes.

What...whether the IRAQIS have the capacity AFTER the US DESTROYED Iraq's infrastructure, AFTER the US ROBBED (is robbing) us & the Iraqis blind, and as the US is DAILY DROPPING BOMBS on the people of Iraq??!

Talk about blaming the victims and white man's burden; "American superiority".

"limitations in the Iraqis' capacity to maintain and operate reconstructed facilities."

Gee, ya think maybe a limitation could be the FOREIGN INVADERS occupying & bombing Iraq???

Fucking hell.