Report: US needs ($132 million) rebate for Baghdad embassy work (from contractor)

[sabra]

Source: AP

WASHINGTON — The State Department's internal watchdog called Thursday for officials to demand a rebate of more than $132 million from a company that built the massive new U.S. Embassy in Baghdad to make up for shoddy work.

In a report, the department's inspector general said First Kuwaiti Trading & Contracting Co. should be required to pay back roughly a quarter of the $470 million it was awarded by State to build the sprawling embassy. More than $730 million was spent on the embassy — the largest U.S. diplomatic mission in the world.

The report also took issue with the State Department's oversight of work at the 104-acre compound, which has fortified working space for 1,000 people and living quarters for several hundred.

"We found that the quality of the (embassy) construction was significantly deficient in multiple areas," the inspector general said.

The report called construction of the compound in a war zone in 34 months a "significant achievement," but said "considerable construction deficiencies remained because designs for the facilities had not been completed and approved and quality control and commissioning procedures were inadequate."

Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jF9OAUgnSaZlIUKD1vwJtH6cvdfgD9BG8JDG0

[asjr]

1. Bush & Cheney sold us out in more ways than this.

[onethatcares]

2. who the hell is the "first Kuwaiti Trading and Contracting Co"?

are they part of the Oily Taint empire of denistry and lawyering?

You can bet your buns that they'll be thirty seven million sham companies between the FKTC company and Halliburton or KBR that won't ever be able to be unwound.

Don't get your hopes up, anyone seen the 365 million dollars that just flat disappeared from Iraq in the beginning? Well that's our money, yours and mine, and it's gone, gone, gone.

[bertman]

3. I thought it was NINE BILLION DOLLARS that just vanished into the thin desert air.

I agree with your concern, onethatcares.

[onethatcares]

4. well the problem is,

no one in the power structure gives a rats ass about the missing money. Sure, they might moan a bit for the cameras, but deep down inside they wish they could get a handful of that cash.

We're farked,

[question everything]

5. Many often wondered why we needed to build that giant fortress

to begin with.

Are the contractors buddies of Cheney?

[bertman]

6. They're doing the same thing in Islamabad, Pakistan. They just want a fortress

that's strong enough to hold off the muslin hordes until the helicopters can arrive for the big extraction.