Front and center in the Washington Post:
A $75 million project to build the largest police academy in Iraq has been so grossly mismanaged that the campus now poses health risks to recruits and might need to be partially demolished, U.S. investigators have found.
The Baghdad Police College, hailed as crucial to U.S. efforts to prepare Iraqis to take control of the country’s security, was so poorly constructed that feces and urine rained from the ceilings in student barracks. Floors heaved inches off the ground and cracked apart. Water dripped so profusely in one room that it was dubbed “the rain forest.”
“This is the most essential civil security project in the country — and it’s a failure,” said Stuart W. Bowen Jr., the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, an independent office created by Congress. “The Baghdad police academy is a disaster.”
That’s another $75 million down the tubes. That’s another year wasted. You really think the Bushies care about spending your tax dollar responsibly? Do you really think they care about winning the peace for the Iraqi people? They don’t. They’re looters. They’re in their sixth year and they’re still just getting started, they’re still blowing off steam.
BTW- Feingold mentioned this Bowen to me on Monday. He said he is a good guy and he’s doing a surprisingly good job, considering he is a BushCo. appointee.
The report serves as the latest indictment of Parsons Corp., the U.S. construction giant that was awarded about $1 billion for a variety of reconstruction projects across Iraq. After chronicling previous Parsons failures to properly build health clinics, prisons and hospitals, Bowen said he now plans to conduct an audit of every Parsons project.
“The truth needs to be told about what we didn’t get for our dollar from Parsons,” Bowen said.
War profiteering is going to be one area the Dems hit hard in the House next year (if we win the house).
