'Billions wasted' in Iraq reconstruction

Between $3 billion and $5 billion have been wasted in the US-effort to rebuild Iraq since 2003, the US official assigned to oversee reconstruction efforts in that country said today. Stuart Bowen, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, warned politicians on Capitol Hill that mistakes made in trying to rebuild Iraq were being repeated in Afghanistan. "Unless the expanding Afghanistan program draws upon the lessons learned in Iraq, substantial waste of taxpayer dollars will occur," Mr Bowen told the House armed services committee. The main problem is that the US government "lacks an accepted doctrine for how to rebuild a failed state and a structure capable of mobilising resources on the required scale." Both Mr Bowen and his counterpart for Afghanistan, retired Marine major general Arnold Fields, said that the US military, the State Department and the Agency for International Development (USAID) need to better coordinate their reconstruction efforts. In the case of Afghanistan there also has to be better cooperation with foreign reconstruction efforts, Maj-Gen Fields said. In Iraq, the biggest culprit in cost overruns were "cost-plus contracts" in which a contractor is paid for a job regardless of extra costs it incurs, Mr Bowen said. President Barack Obama earlier this month announced that the use of such contracts will be reviewed. Also speaking was Jacquelyn Williams-Bridgers, who heads the Government Accountability Offices's division in charge of international affairs and trade. Ms Williams-Bridgers said the GAO estimates that Iraq currently has a budget surplus of some $US47 billion ($67.83 billion), down from $US77 billion ($111.13 billion) last year due mainly to the slump in global oil prices. But it was unclear how much of this was being used for reconstruction, she said. An August 2008 GAO report estimated that Iraq had spent less than $US4 billion ($5.77 billion) between 2005 and April 2008 on maintaining and rebuilding key civil infrastructure. The United States has appropriated $US50 billion ($72.16 billion) for Iraqi reconstruction, "about 25 times greater than we originally anticipated", Mr Bowen said.