The LA Times had an insightful article about the wasteful spending our government has done in the War in Iraq. I always knew our government under the George Bush administration was lying to the American people. There were contradictions in their statements and it seemed they wanted to invade no matter what the inspectors or the Iraq government said. I also thought based on the New Pearl Harbor idea written by that administration 10 years prior, it was obvious this was being done for other reasons.
The funny thing is we spent money bombing the place. Then we wasted more money trying to fix the damage we created. All for the purpose of spending money on our military contractors. If you don’t know what I am referring to, then here is a link to an old post where you can educate yourself: Iraq for Sale– the war profiteers.
LA Times:
Construction began in May 2004 at a time when U.S. money was pouring into the country. It quickly ran into huge cost overruns. Violence erupted in the area, and a manager was shot dead in his office. The Iraqi government said it didn’t want or need the prison. In 2007 the project was abandoned, but only after $40 million of U.S. taxpayer money had been spent.
The prison is just one of the more vivid examples of what is likely to be “a significant legacy of waste” in the reconstruction program, said Stuart Bowen, the head of the office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, which audited the project as well as many others littering the battered Iraqi landscape.
As U.S. combat operations officially end this week and Washington’s reconstruction effort winds up, Iraqis complain that America is leaving little behind to show for an investment that President Bush promised in 2003 would parallel the post- World War II Marshall Plan in its scope and accomplishments.
“I am very sorry because America spent a lot of money without any tangible results,” said Ali Baban, Iraq’s minister of planning, who is responsible for overseeing the projects now being handed over to the Iraqi government. “The Iraqi people heard a lot about American assistance, but really they didn’t touch it or feel it.”
Many things went wrong, officials say, looking back on seven years of missteps and successes that could offer lessons for similar efforts in Afghanistan, where reconstruction expenditures are expected to surpass those of Iraq next year.
Under pressure to produce results quickly, the U.S. awarded no-bid contracts to companies with little knowledge of the country they were hired to help. Projects were haphazardly planned and poorly executed. As the insurgency erupted, projects were either destroyed or the costs of providing security to continue them ballooned. And perhaps most important, officials say, Iraqis were not consulted as to which projects actually would be useful.
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