Crumbling Rebuild Project in Iraq

Inspectors for a federal oversight agency have found that seven out of the eight samples of American-financed rebuilding projects in Iraq that the U.S. declared successes were no longer operating as designed. The U.S. has previously admitted that sometimes under the pressure from federal inspectors, some of the reconstruction projects have been abandoned, delayed or poorly constructed. But this is the first time that inspectors have found projects that officially declared a success, were no longer working properly.

11.8 million dollars has spent on new electrical generators at an airport, but 8.5 million dollars worth were no longer functioning. And a newly built water purification system was not functioning either.

The Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction said that they tried to sample different regions and types of projects, but because many projects were in areas too unsafe to visit, the initial set of eight projects cannot be seen as a true statistical measure of the thousands American rebuilding program.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/29/world/middleeast/29reconstruct.html?_r=1&oref=slogin