23 January 2006Yahoo News
The $25 billion American reconstruction effort in Iraq was hobbled from the start by understaffing, a lack of technical expertise, bureaucratic infighting, secrecy and rising security costs, The New York Times reported on Monday.
Staffing shortfalls and contracting battles between the State Department and Pentagon created delays of months at a stretch, the newspaper reported on its Web site, citing the first official history of the reconstruction program, assembled by the office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq.
The report, to be published in the newspaper on Tuesday, said the document was dated December 2005. It begins with secret prewar planning for reconstruction of Iraq and touches on nearly every phase of the program through 2005.
The report comes amid rising concern among Americans about President George W. Bush's policy in Iraq, where billions of dollars have been spent on a reconstruction effort that critics say has yielded relatively modest results.
The document also expresses concern about writing contracts for an entity with the "ambiguous legal status" of the Coalition Provisional Authority, the newspaper said. And it said "seemingly odd decisions" on responsibility for aspects of the reconstruction have been recounted repeatedly.
"It almost looks like a spoils system between various agencies," Steve Ellis, a vice president and authority on the Army Corps of Engineers at Taxpayers for Common Sense in Washington, told Times.
"You had various fiefdoms established in the contracting process," said Ellis, who read a copy of the document.
The newspaper said it obtained a copy of the report from a person at a closed forum at which roughly two dozen experts from outside the Special Inspector General's office debated the report.
A spokesman for the office declined to comment on the report to The New York Times besides saying it was highly preliminary. "It could change significantly before it is finally published," spokesman Jim Mitchell told the newspaper.
