Report Finds Iraq Water Treatment Project to Be Late, Faulty and Over Budget

[tpsbmam]

Source: NY Times

A huge American-financed wastewater treatment plant in the desert city of Falluja, which United States troops assaulted twice to root out insurgents in 2004, was supposed to be the centerpiece of an effort to rebuild Iraq, a country smashed by war and neglect, and bring Western standards of sanitation.

Instead, the project, which has tripled in cost from original plans to $100 million and has fallen about three years behind schedule, has become an example of the failed and often oversold program to rebuild Iraq’s infrastructure with American dollars and skill.

The project was so poorly conceived that there is no reliable electricity to run pumps and purification tanks, and no money left to connect homes to the main sewer lines, which now run uselessly beneath Falluja’s streets, according to a report by federal investigators to be released Monday.

The report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, an independent federal office led by Stuart W. Bowen Jr., stops short of saying that officials with the United States Army Corps of Engineers, which has primary responsibility for the project, or the American Embassy’s own reconstruction bureau, the Iraq Transition Assistance Office, deliberately withheld information on the problems.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/27/world/middleeast/27reconstruct.html

[MannyGoldstein]

1. In Other Breaking News

The sun will set tonight, and I'll be hungry at lunchtime.

[madrchsod]

2. iraq was the of the most advanced arab country before the gulf wars

the sanctions enforced by the united states in the 90`s restricted the chemicals used in water purification. no one really knows the number of dead that were a direct result of the continuing war against the people of iraq during the clinton presidency. we bombed the water distribution systems,embargoed the chemicals during the 90`s,and finally destroyed what ever was left in the 2000`s. the continuing war against the iraqi people by the government of the united states since the early 90`s will be written in the history books as genocide.

[Wilms]

6. But, but, but...Madeleine Albright said, "We Think the Price Is Worth It".

Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it.

--60 Minutes (5/12/96)

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1084

[mwb970]

3. What a totally typical Republican debacle.

And, as if to remove any doubt that the carefully devised public image of the project bears only a passing resemblance to what the investigators observed, the Army Corps has repeatedly promoted the Falluja project as a remarkable success in its constant stream of news releases on Iraq reconstruction.

In April, for example, an Army Corps release said the project had been started in May 2007 and would eventually serve all the homes in Falluja. In fact, investigators found, the project was begun in June 2004 and was originally supposed to have been finished 18 months later.

At the earliest, the project will be partly operational by next April, the investigators found. And while the original plan called for the plant to cover the entire city, it has since been downsized to serve at most one-third of the population, or about 9,300 homes.

That means the project would end up costing more than $10,000 per home. But even at that price — and even if additional financing can be found to connect the houses to the sewer lines — the plant may never operate.

3x cost overrun, check. 3 years late, check. Never will work right, check. Lying press release describing project as "remarkable success", check. This whole story smells of Republicans.

[SpiralHawk]

4. Yes, this has R-E-P-U-B-L-I-C-O-N written all over it...

You can be sure some crony contractor is laffing his ass off as he counts up his ill-gotten Republicon War Profits.

[Javaman]

5. what? yet another single bidder corporate shilled project behind schedule?

I'm sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo surprised.