Wasted Billions/Equipping US Troops

The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) just released its quarterly report and truth be told I could probably just copy and paste my earlier blog entry on the last SIGIR report in this space. Little to no progress has been made in reviving crucial sectors of Iraq such as water and electricity, and reconstruction projects continue to suffer from poor construction practices and in a new twist, unwarranted extravagances. In one case, contractors building a camp for American trainers constructed an Olympic-size swimming pool that hadn't been ordered.

Once again at issue is a lack of effective oversight. The major contractors are passing on the contracts to Iraqi subcontractors without ever following up.

In its last report SIGIR revealed that 4% of the weapons that the United States had provided to Iraqi security forces could not be accounted for. This time around, SIGIR went a step further auditing the US' ability to equip the soldiers presently stationed in Iraq. SIGIR found that many soldiers have gone without guns, ammunition and other supplies necessary for the soldiers to complete missions. Soldiers have also been found lacking proper body armor, armored vehicles and communication devices. This Washington Post article has more details on the challenges the Pentagon is having equipping US troops.

So because of a lack of proper oversight, billions have been wasted on shoddy reconstruction projects essentially depriving US soldiers of the equipment they count on to survive in Iraq. And this is not even taking into account the 21,000 extra troops that will soon be arriving in Iraq. How will we properly equip them, if we can't even manage to satisfy the demands of the soldiers currently in Iraq? Add to this the fact that the Iraqi security forces these soldiers will be fighting alongside are similarly ill-equipped. Putting aside any notion you may have that we have already lost, this new strategy for Iraq has been cited by many as our last shot at achieving a preferred outcome in Iraq. So how is it that we can't dedicate all our efforts to increasing its probability for success? Let us just hope that those on the ground in Iraq and on the Hill in DC are readying a Plan B.

Making Private Contractors in Iraq Accountable

In the last few years many incidents involving criminally negligent private contractors have made headlines, yet in each instance the guilty parties are rarely, if ever, prosecuted or punished. In fact not one contractor in the entire military industry in Iraq has been charged with a crime in the past three and a half years. According to Peter Singer of the Brookings Institution, as of a few weeks ago, this has all changed.

It seems that amidst all the add-ins and pork spending attached to the Pentagon's 2007 budget, a rather important, almost revolutionary clause was slipped in. Section 552 states that "Paragraph (10) of section 802(a) of title 10, United States Code (article 2(a) of the Uniform Code of Military Justice), is amended by striking ` and inserting `declared war or a contingency operation'.

Dr. Singer explains:

"The addition of five little words to a massive US legal code that fills entire shelves at law libraries wouldn't normally matter for much. But with this change, contractors' 'get out of jail free' card may have been torn to shreds. Previously, contractors would only fall under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, better known as the court martial system, if Congress declared war. This is something that has not happened in over 65 years and out of sorts with the most likely operations in the 21st century. The result is that whenever our military officers came across episodes of suspected contractor crimes in missions like Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, or Afghanistan, they had no tools to resolve them. As long as Congress had not formally declared war, civilians — even those working for the US armed forces, carrying out military missions in a conflict zone — fell outside their jurisdiction. The military's relationship with the contractor was, well, merely contractual...When such incidents happen, the officers [in charge] have had no recourse other than to file reports that are supposed to be sent on either to the local government or the US Department of Justice, neither of which had traditionally done much. The local government is often failed or too weak to act."

While this is certainly a good sign, it is still unclear as to how effective this new law will be. Will it apply to all ongoing contracts? Do "contractors" include civilians, such as journalists, who are embedded with troops but not contracted? Either way, just the fact that this clause is in the books is a considerable leap forward and should make some contractors think twice about their activities in Iraq.

SIGIR Saved....For Now

Though not yet officially in the majority, the Democrats have already started their campaign to reform Iraq-related legislation. Late last week, the House and Senate passed a bill extending the life of the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) through to 2008, giving it the authority to examine the $32 billion spent on reconstruction. The New York Times reports that Bush is likely to sign the bill. This is great news. EPIC has long been an active proponent of the work SIGIR has done.

Since its inception in 2004, SIGIR has saved US taxpayers approximately $405.1 million and its investigations have led to several convictions of American occupation officials on bribery charges. Its latest report, published in October, which I discussed extensively in an earlier blog posting, provided a detailed analysis of what progress has been made on the ground and where the most significant problems lie. SIGIR’s investigations of Halliburton alone uncovered tens of millions of dollars of wasted funds and found that the company has been exploiting a federal loophole to keep its activities in Iraq confidential.

New Legislation to Save SIGIR

The New York Times is reporting that Congressional Democrats will introduce new legislation next week that will renew the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction’s (SIGIR) mandate to oversee reconstruction efforts in Iraq while greatly increasing its investigative reach. This is in response to a recent Republican-backed provision sneaked into a large military authorization bill that called for the closure of the SIGIR office in one year.

This is great news. It has become clear from the errors committed during this conflict by firms such as Halliburton and Parsons that oversight in Iraq is fundamental to our reconstruction efforts there. Besides the billions of taxpayer dollars being wasted, lackluster reconstruction efforts can endanger lives and will only prolong US involvement in Iraq.

Since its inception in 2004, SIGIR has saved US taxpayers approximately $405.1 million and its investigations have led to several convictions of American occupation officials on bribery charges. Its latest report, published in October, which I discussed extensively in an earlier blog posting, provided a detailed analysis of what progress has been made on the ground and where the most significant problems lie. SIGIR’s investigations of Halliburton alone uncovered tens of millions of dollars of wasted funds and found that the company has been exploiting a federal loophole to keep its activities in Iraq confidential.

One of the greatest problems in Iraq is a lack of oversight: Contractors and firms are not being held accountable for their actions. It should be inconceivable that the US do away with one of the only bodies that is successfully monitoring this phase in the Iraq conflict.