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Highlights:
A U.S. government audit found American-led occupation authorities squandered tens of millions of dollars that were supposed to be used to rebuild Iraq through undocumented spending and outright fraud.
In some cases, auditors could find no trace of cash, much of which came from Iraqi oil revenues overseen by the occupation authority.
"Those deficiencies were so significant that we were precluded from accomplishing our stated objectives," the auditors said of U.S. officials in Hillah being unable to account for $97 million of the $120 million in Iraqi oil revenues earmarked for rebuilding projects.
Negligence proved deadly in at least one case. Three Iraqis plummeted to their deaths in an elevator in the Hillah General Hospital that was certified to have been replaced by a contractor who received $662,800.
Also in Hillah, occupation officials spent $108,140 to replace pumps and fix the city's Olympic swimming pool. But the contractor merely polished the old plumbing to make it look new and collected his money.
When the pool was filled, the water came out a murky brown and the pool's reopening had to be canceled.
It looks like we're doing a real bang-up job over there.Two occupation authority field agents responsible for paying contractors left Iraq without accounting for more than $700,000 each. When auditors confronted their manager and asked where the money was, the manger tried to clear one of the agents through false paperwork.
"This appears to be an attempt to remove outstanding balances by simply washing accounts," the auditor said.
You know, if Iraq were to come out of this whole debacle with a stable government which was responsive to the people and had both the popular mandate and the capability to enforce security in the country, the war wouldn't seem so negative.
Unfortunately, it looks as though that is not happening. From all appearances, we are slogging along very slowly in our efforts to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure, government, and security apparatus. Militants infiltrate Iraqi security forces quite easily, sympathizers are regularly assassinated, the government does not have broad based support, and on and on.
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It's a bad sign when Iraqi's are willing to voice this sort of sentiment more and more loudly as we prepare to reduce our troop presence and turn the country back over to Iraq. What will happen when we go? What will we have accomplished?Iraq's top Sunni Arab political leader accused Shiite-dominated security forces Sunday of pursuing a strategy of sectarian "cleansing" in Baghdad and said he opposed giving key Cabinet posts to Shiites — a stance likely to further inflame tensions.
Iraq's ceaseless violence killed at least 20 people, including 13 Iraqi policemen and soldiers. Three Iraqis were killed in a spate of church bombings bearing the hallmarks of Sunni insurgent attacks.
