Iraqi reconstruction efforts 'rife with corruption and waste'

from: The Financial Times 24 January 2005

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By Thomas Catan and Jimmy Burns in London

The authors of a new report on post-conflict reconstruction have
warned that efforts to rebuild Iraq have so far proved wasteful,
ineffective and rife with corruption.

The report, to be released in London today, was funded by the United
Nations Development Programme and draws on examples of previous
post-war efforts to rebuild countries including Bosnia, Lebanon
and Sierra Leone.

The study, carried out by Tiri, the London-based governance campaign
group, and the Lebanese chapter of Transparency International, has
found that such reconstruction is viewed by much of the international
community as a "state of exception" in which the normal rule of
business conduct do not apply. The need to spend funds pledged for
rebuilding makes it acceptable to bend the rules, award contracts
without competitive tender and turn a blind-eye to profiteering and
conflicts of interest.

The authors are particularly critical of donors' tendency to use
large western contractors to repair infrastructure damaged in the
war, importing foreign personnel and equipment at a huge cost. In
Iraq, that policy has proved disastrous, one of the authors said in
an interview.

"I don't believe there is anybody in Iraq that has the slightest
confidence in the foreign contractors," said Jeremy Carver, chairman
of Tiri and co-chairman of the UK International Rescue Committee.
"The foreign contractors have actually done very little work.
They've just surrounded themselves with bodyguards. The people that
have made money in Iraq are the security companies."

Mr Carver, who as head of international law at Clifford Chance, was a
frequent visitor to the region, said: "The ordinary Iraqi - even if
they were passionately against Saddam and delighted to see him
go - feel that there's nothing left for them after 18 months of
occupation. The Americans have brought them, precisely, nothing."

The damning report follows growing criticism - both official and
unofficial - of efforts to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan. The UK's
Christian Aid and George Soros' Iraqi Revenuewatch have said that
billions of dollars in Iraq oil revenues have been spent on
reconstruction with few discernible results.

A UN watchdog, the International Advisory and Monitoring Board, and
the Coalition Provisional Authority's own inspector general have also
sharply criticised the former occupation authority's handling of
Iraqi oil funds for reconstruction projects.

Former CPA officials have argued that the general chaos and the
urgent needs of the Iraqi people often forced them to take quick
action and circumvent procedures to get things done. But the report
says the strongest safeguard against waste, fraud and corruption is
for international donors to reject the notion of a "state of
exception" and to expect normal rules to be observed.

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The Democrat Party created our failed Medicare, Medicaid, and Social
Security programs. And those three Democrat programs alone are now
forecast to consume as large of share of the national economy in 2030
as the ENTIRE federal budget currently consumes.

The near-term deficits pale beside the CBO's admittedly rough
projections for 2030, when all the baby boom generation will have
reached eligibility for Social Security and Medicare.

If they keep growing at current rates, those two programs plus
Medicaid for the poor will be nearly as large a share of the national
economy as the entire budget is now, the CBO said.

And does today's Democrat Party have any SOLUTIONS for this fiscal
mess it has created? No, of course not! Other than try to blame
the Republicans for those runaway federal spending that those three
DEMOCRAT-created fiscal messes produce, that is.

Democrat Party ideology is BAD for America's future.