WASHINGTON -- As American military commanders struggle with deteriorating security in Iraq, there are growing indications that the $21 billion U.S. reconstruction effort is at risk, including a new report that casts doubt on Iraq's ability to maintain the reconstruction projects that have been completed.
The government of Iraq has been unable to boost the production of oil or electricity despite U.S. aid and many critical U.S.-funded projects remain unfinished, according to the latest quarterly report by Stuart W. Bowen, the U.S. special inspector general for Iraqi reconstruction. Some of the work done under U.S. supervision has been so shoddy that it will saddle the Iraqi government with additional maintenance headaches, he said.
The dismal outlook for Iraq, including high unemployment, continuing corruption and the inability of the Iraqi government to work effectively, requires "a new phase of investment" to secure the reconstruction done so far, said Bowen's report, which is being released today.
Since 2003, Congress has appropriated $21 billion for the Iraqi Relief and Reconstruction Fund, which has been spent or obligated in contracts. An additional $11 billion has been appropriated for reconstruction and other post-invasion initiatives, such as training Iraq's security forces.
Congress set up Bowen's office in 2004 to audit the spending programs.
In an interview, Bowen said international aid donors are $10 billion short of what they have promised, and more international aid for Iraq is needed "urgently."
Iraq's two biggest problems are official corruption and the lack of security, "and the two are linked," he said, citing an Iraqi government report that $1 billion stolen from an oil refinery in northern Iraq ended up in the hands of the insurgency.
"It's a devastating problem," he said.
His worries were reflected yesterday by Adm. William J. Fallon, nominated by President Bush to be the new U.S. military commander in the Middle East. At his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Fallon reiterated that the Iraq war cannot be won "militarily" but requires urgent economic and political action as well.
"The situation in Iraq is serious and clearly in need of new and different actions," Fallon said. "What we have been doing has not been working. ... We have got to be doing, it seems to me, something different."
Congress skeptical
