Iraqi Police Academy Is A "DISASTER" (Washington Post)

[kpete]

Heralded Iraq police academy a 'disaster'
$75 million project so mismanaged that campus poses huge health risks
By Amit R. Paley

Updated: 10:44 p.m. PT Sept 27, 2006

BAGHDAD - A $75 million project to build the largest police academy in Iraq has been so grossly mismanaged that the campus now poses health risks to recruits and might need to be partially demolished, U.S. investigators have found.

The Baghdad Police College, hailed as crucial to U.S. efforts to prepare Iraqis to take control of the country's security, was so poorly constructed that feces and urine rained from the ceilings in student barracks. Floors heaved inches off the ground and cracked apart. Water dripped so profusely in one room that it was dubbed "the rain forest."

"This is the most essential civil security project in the country -- and it's a failure," said Stuart W. Bowen Jr., the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, an independent office created by Congress. "The Baghdad police academy is a disaster." Bowen's office plans to release a 21-page report Thursday detailing the most alarming problems with the facility.

Even in a $21 billion reconstruction effort that has been marred by cases of corruption and fraud, failures in training and housing Iraq's security forces are particularly significant because of their effect on what the U.S. military has called its primary mission here: to prepare Iraqi police and soldiers so that Americans can depart.

more at:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15022363/

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. I guess the builders pocketed the bulk of that money and cut corners

[TheCowsCameHome]

2. You can be sure the contractors mansions aren't crumbling

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

3. Parsons Group

CEO's contributions:

$2000 to Schiff (Dem) for Congress

$15,000 to the RNC.

$5000 to some McCain group.

[ContraBass Black]

4. Of all the things I thought they'd screw up,

I didn't think the building would be one of them.