Four years after the unfortunate bravado of “Mission Accomplished,” a report on the reconstruction of war-torn Iraq painfully details that the U.S. rebuilding mission is anything but.
Even as President Bush wrangles with Congress over war funding and strategy – he vetoed its Iraq spending bill Tuesday – fewer Iraqis have access to clean water than before the war began, and electrical power in Baghdad is available only about six hours a day, if that.
Whatever becomes of the effort to turn security missions to the Iraqi military, it seems obvious that government ministries won’t be able to manage reconstruction efforts anytime soon. U.S. efforts to rebuild Iraq have been sabotaged by violence and corruption, according to the latest audit by the U.S. Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction.
The country is beset by power outages and a lack of clean water and health care. The country’s power system generates fewer megawatts than it did before the war began, averaging only 6.5 hours of power in Baghdad during the last week of March. Only 5.6 million Iraqis have reliable access to clean water. The U.S. goal is 8.4 million.
Even one of the heralded successes of the U.S. invasion, the completion of more than 800 school projects, turns out to be a mixed bag at best. Less than one-third of Iraqi children even go to school because of the sectarian violence and highly volatile nature of public security.
The report puts into writing what U.S. military commanders already have been referencing in recent weeks. The situation is grim, and it’s positively unbelievable when you consider the rebuilding effort has cost nearly $400 billion.
Before the war, Americans were told profits from Iraqi oil sales would pay for reconstruction, but the country also suffers from inadequate oil production as pipelines are bombed by insurgents. Critical segments of Iraq’s oil, water, gas and electric infrastructure are attacked, on average, 1.4 times per week, according to the Defense Department. The number of attacks is down, but the size of the attacks has grown.
And then there’s the corruption. Iraq has lost or mismanaged some $8 billion. Fraud “afflicts virtually every Iraqi ministry,” according to the report.
As Congress tangles with the president over dates for troop withdrawal, it’s essential that Iraqi officials weed out further corruption and better maintain U.S.-funded projects. Otherwise, Iraqi reconstruction will be mission impossible.
