Inspectors: Millions in Iraq aid wasted

 

By HOPE YEN and PAULINE JELINEK, Associated Press Writers

WASHINGTON - Major U.S. companies with multimillion-dollar contracts for Iraq reconstruction are being forced to devote 12.5 percent of their expenses for security due to spiraling violence in the region, investigators said Wednesday.

 

Meanwhile, tens of millions of U.S. dollars have been wasted elsewhere in Iraq reconstruction aid, some of it on an Olympic-size swimming pool ordered up by Iraqi officials for a police academy that has yet to be used.

 

The quarterly audit by Stuart Bowen Jr., the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, is the latest to paint a grim picture of waste, fraud and frustration in an Iraq war and reconstruction effort that has cost U.S. taxpayers more than $300 billion and left the region near civil war.

 

According to the report, nine of the largest U.S. contractors in Iraq reported paying significant amounts of money for personal security for their workers, protection against violence at their construction sites and elsewhere.

Contractor security costs ranged from 7.6 percent to 16.7 percent, or an average of 12.5 percent, the report said.

 

"The security situation in Iraq continues to deteriorate, hindering progress in all reconstruction sectors and threatening the overall reconstruction effort," according to the 579-page report.

 

Calling Iraq's sectarian violence the greatest challenge, Bowen said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press that billions in U.S. aid spent on strengthening security has had limited effect. He said reconstruction now will fall largely on Iraqis to manage — and they're nowhere ready for the task.

 

Former Rep. Lee Hamilton, co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group, said Wednesday that the report shows the uphill battle for the United States and the international community in their efforts to bring stability in Iraq.

 

"There are very, very few things that hurt our effort more in trying to succeed in Iraq than that kind of performance, because it turns all people off," Hamilton during testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

 

The audit comes as President Bush is pressing Congress to approve $1.2 billion in new reconstruction aid as part of his broader plan to stabilize Iraq by sending 21,500 more U.S. troops to Baghdad and Anbar province.

 

Democrats in Congress have been skeptical. Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., has suggested the U.S. is spending too much on Iraq reconstruction at the expense of Hurricane Katrina rebuilding in New Orleans, while California Rep. Henry Waxman plans in-depth hearings next week into charges of Iraq waste and fraud.

 

According to the report, the State Department paid $43.8 million to contractor DynCorp International for the residential camp for police training personnel outside of Baghdad's Adnan Palace grounds that has stood empty for months. About $4.2 million of the money was improperly spent on 20 VIP trailers and an Olympic-size pool, all ordered by the Iraqi Ministry of Interior but never authorized by the U.S.

 

U.S. officials spent another $36.4 million for weapons such as armored vehicles, body armor and communications equipment that can't be accounted for. DynCorp also may have prematurely billed $18 million in other potentially unjustified costs, the report said.

 

Responding, the State Department said in the report that it was working to improve controls. Already, it has developed a review process that rejected a $1.1 million DynCorp bill earlier this month on a separate contract because the billed rate was incorrect.

 

A spokesman for DynCorp, Greg Lagana, did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment.

 

Bowen, whose office was nearly eliminated last month by administration-friendly Republicans in Congress, called spending waste in Iraq a continuing problem. Corruption is high among Iraqi officials, while U.S. contract management remains somewhat weak.

 

With the United States' $21 billion rebuilding effort largely finished, it will be up to the international community and the Iraqis to pitch in to sustain reconstruction, Bowen said in the interview. "That will be a long-term and very expensive process," he said.

 

According to the inspector general:

 

_Shoddy construction was widespread at the $73 million Baghdad Police College, including plumbing problems that posed health risks to Iraqi recruits.

_Bowen's office opened 27 new criminal probes in the last quarter, bringing the total number of active cases to 78. Twenty-three are awaiting

 

prosecutorial action by the Justice Department, most of them centering on charges of bribery and kickbacks.

 

Still, "fraud has not been a significant component of the U.S. experience in Iraq," Bowen said.

 

As of the end of 2006, contracts had been let for all of the $21 billion that Congress put into the Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund it created in 2003. Some 80 percent of the money has been paid out, the report said.

Since 2003, use of the reconstruction aid changed several times as U.S. officials shifted priorities to spend more on security problems or programs critical to supporting elections or developing the new government.

 

For example, money was cut from what had been originally planned for electricity, water, oil projects and transportation and communication so it could be used to help pay for such things as health care, elections, democracy programs and training Iraqi security forces.

 

Overall, the largest single expense was security. The total was spent in the following way:

 

_34 percent for security and justice.

_23 percent to try to generate and distribute electricity. Still, the report noted, output in the last quarter averaged below prewar levels.

_12 percent for water.

_12 percent for economic and societal development.

_9 percent for oil and gas.

_4 percent for transportation and communications.

_4 percent for health care.

 

Auditors had "significant concern" about the way ahead, partly because of the Iraqi government's bad track record on budgeting for such projects, the report said. It said the Iraqi government had "billions of budgeted dollars remained unspent at the end of 2006."

 

Unemployment remains high, contributing to the insurgency because it sours the population and leaves idle young men to their own devices, according to the report.

The government's "most significant challenge continues to be strengthening rule-of-law institutions — the judiciary, prisons and the police," the report said. "The United States has spent billions of dollars in this area, with limited success to date."

Suicide bomber kills 121 in Baghdad

 

By KIM GAMEL, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A suicide truck bomber struck a market in a predominantly Shiite area of Baghdad on Saturday, killing at least 121 people and wounding scores among the crowd buying food for evening meals, the most devastating strike in the capital in more than two months.

 

The attacker was driving a truck carrying food when he detonated his explosives, destroying stores and stalls that had been set up in the busy outdoor Sadriyah market, police said.

 

The late-afternoon explosion was the latest in a series of attacks against mainly Shiite commercial targets in the capital. No group claimed responsibility for the attack, but it appeared to be part of a bid by Sunni insurgents to provoke retaliatory violence and kill as many people as possible ahead of a planned U.S.-Iraqi security sweep.

 

Mortars reportedly struck predominantly Sunni areas hours after the attack.

Many of the injured were driven to overwhelmed hospitals in pickup trucks and lifted onto stretchers.

 

"It was a strong blow. A car exploded. I fell on the ground," said one young man with a bandaged head, his face still streaked with blood.

 

Officials said at least 121 people were killed and 226 wounded. The Kindi hospital, Baghdad's main emergency facility, quickly filled and asked ambulances from the bombing to take the injured elsewhere.

T

he Sadriyah market sits on a sidestreet lined with stores and vendors selling produce and other food. The market is about 500 yards from a Sunni shrine in an adjacent neighborhood.

 

The blast was the deadliest attack in the capital since Nov. 23, when suspected al-Qaida in Iraq fighters attacked the capital's Sadr City Shiite slum with a series of car bombs and mortars that struck in quick succession, killing at least 215 people.

 

A suicide bomber also crashed his car into the Bab al-Sharqi market, near Sadriyah, on Jan. 22, killing 88 people.

 

South of Baghdad, a pair of suicide bombers detonated explosives Thursday among shoppers in a crowded outdoor market in the Shiite city of Hillah, killing at least 73 people and wounding 163, police said.

 

Iraq's senior Shiite cleric called for Muslim unity and an end to sectarian conflict — his first public statement in months on the worsening security crisis.

 

The Iranian-born Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani urged all Muslims to work to overcome sectarian differences and calm the passions, which serve only "those who want to dominate the Islamic country and control its resources to achieve their aims."

 

In the northern city of Kirkuk, eight bombs exploded within two hours, beginning with a suicide car bomber who targeted the offices of the Kurdish Democratic Party of Massoud Barzani, leader of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, police said. Two people were killed in the first explosion, which devastated four nearby houses.

 

Nobody claimed responsibility for the attacks in the oil-rich region, but there are concerns that insurgents have fled north to avoid the impending crackdown in Baghdad. Ethnic tensions also have risen in the area over a Kurdish bid to incorporate it into their autonomous region to the north.

 

At the Kurdish party offices, guards opened fire as the attacker drove up, and the explosives detonated about 15 yards from the building, killing at least two people and wounding 30, including five KDP guards, police Col. Dishtoun Mohammed said.

 

Concrete blast walls protected the offices from serious damage, but the explosion devastated four nearby houses. Five charred cars were near the entrance of the Kurdish building, in a mainly Turkomen district.

 

 

"We are upset and angry about the existence of a party office in our area," Um Khalid, a 52-year-old Turkomen housewife, said as she examined her damaged home. "Had the office not been here, the suicide bomber would not have chosen to explode his car near our houses."

 

Another car bomb exploded about 20 minutes later near a girls' school in the south of the city, but the school was closed for the weekend and no casualties were reported, police Col. Anwar Hassan said.

 

A third car bomb hit a gas station in southern Kirkuk, followed by two other parked car bombs 20 minutes later near a popular pastry shop. Eight people were wounded in those explosions.

 

"I heard the sound of the explosion as I was adding water to the flour inside the shop. I rushed outside to see smoke and fire rising from the car bombs while some moving cars were colliding with each other," said Mohammed Faleh, who works in the Shaima pastry shop.

 

A sixth car bomb wounded five other people in the mainly Arab al-Wasiti area in southern Kirkuk, while two roadside bombs targeted police patrols at about the same time in a predominantly Christian area in the north of the city.

Razqar Ali, a Kurdish leader and head of Kirkuk provincial council, accused the militants of trying to destabilize the city.

 

"They want to depict the city as unsafe to provide a pretext to other groups to interfere," he said, an implicit reference to Turkey's objections to the Kurdish efforts to incorporate the city.

 

Turkey, Iraq's northern neighbor, is pressuring the Iraqi government to protect the interests of the Turkomen, ethnic Turks who once were a majority in the city. Ankara also fears Iraqi Kurdish ambitions could fuel hostilities with Kurdish separatists at home.

 

In Mosul, northwest of Kirkuk, armed insurgents and Iraqi forces fought for several hours and authorities imposed a temporary curfew on the city. There was no immediate word on casualties. Police spokesman Brig. Abdul Karim al-Jubouri said Iraqi security forces backed by U.S. air power were moving in.

 

Gunmen also attacked a police checkpoint at the northern entrance to Samarra 60 miles north of Baghdad, killing four policemen and wounding another, police said, adding that three militants were killed and one was wounded in the fighting that lasted for about 30 minutes.

 

In Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad, a convoy of 15 cars carrying gunmen brandishing weapons and banners declaring the establishment of an "Islamic State" drove through the Sunni town while businessmen quickly closed their stores for fear of trouble.

The show of force followed the Iraqi government's announcement on Tuesday that it had arrested a provincial leader of al-Qaida in Iraq and broken a major cell in the area.

Truck blast kills 35 at Iraqi mosque

 

By SAMEER N. YACOUB, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A truck exploded Saturday as worshippers left a Sunni mosque west of Baghdad, killing at least 35 people and injuring more than 60 in an apparent sign of increased internal Sunni battles between insurgents and those opposing them.

 

The imam of the mosque in Habbaniyah, about 50 miles west of Baghdad, had spoken out against militants fighting the U.S.-backed government, including the group al-Qaida in Iraq.

 

At least 35 people were killed and 62 injured, said Lt. Abdul-Aziz Mohammed in Habbaniyah, which lies between the cities of Ramadi and Fallujah — both hotbeds of the insurgency.

 

Earlier Saturday, thousands of Shiites rallied in the holy city of Najaf on Saturday to protest the nearly 12-hour detention of the eldest son of Iraq's most influential Shiite politician as he crossed back from Iran. The U.S. military called the incident "unfortunate."

 

"Is this the way to deal with a national figure? This does not conform with Iraq's sovereignty," said Amar al-Hakim, 35, who was taken into custody Friday at the Zirbatyah crossing point southeast of Baghdad along with his security guards.

 

Al-Hakim said U.S. soldiers handcuffed and blindfolded him before his release and "strongly abused" his bodyguards. He said cellular phones, licensed weapons and two-way radios were among items confiscated.

 

"It is not a question of offering apologies," he told a news conference in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, about 160 kilometers (100 miles) south of Baghdad. "We need clear and honest measures to prevent such incidents from happening again."

 

The convoy was using the same route Washington believes is used to keep powerful Shiite militias flush with weapons and aid.

Al-Hakim said U.S. military officials told him the detention was because his passport had expired, but he said it was valid until Sept. 17, 2007.

 

Even though U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad issued a rapid apology, the decision to hold al-Hakim risks touching off more backlash from Shiite leaders at a time when their cooperation is needed most to keep a major security sweep through Baghdad from unraveling.

 

It also highlights the often knotty relationship between U.S. military authorities and Iraq's leaders, whose ties to neighboring patrons — Syria backing Sunnis, and Iran acting as big brother to majority Shiites — add fuel to sectarian rivalries and bring recriminations from Washington about alleged arms smuggling and outside interference.

 

A suicide car bomb struck in the same Baghdad neighborhood as the headquarters of the political bloc led by al-Hakim's father, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or SCIRI. At least three people were killed and it was not immediately clear if the attack was related to the detention.

 

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, ducked a question about the detention during a news conference, saying only that the circumstances were unclear and still being investigated.

 

But Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi, a Shiite and a top leader in the parliamentary bloc controlled by al-Hakim's father, described the behavior of the U.S. troops involved in the detention as "inappropriate, foolish and haphazard."

 

He told Al-Forat television that the incident has highlighted the need to streamline security cooperation between the Iraqi and U.S. sides, adding that it was "a gross violation of an important personality that we cannot accept."

 

The U.S. military said Saturday that the vehicles were initially stopped because they "met specific criteria for further investigation in an area where smuggling activity has taken place in the past."

 

Al-Hakim was detained after members of the convoy "did not cooperate with coalition forces and displayed suspicious activities," but he was released to Iraqi authorities and his possessions were returned after further investigation, the military said.

 

 

"Mr. Hakim was treated with dignity and respect throughout the incident," the military said. "Unfortunate incidents such as this occasionally occur as Iraq endeavors to secure its borders."

 

Shiite reaction to the detention was quick and sharp on the streets, and some officials suggesting it was a veiled warning about the limits of ties to Iran.

 

About 8,000 people demonstrated near the Imam Ali mosque in Najaf against the detention, raising Iraqi flags and pictures of al-Hakim and his father, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim. Banners warned that such acts jeopardized the political process.

 

"The detention of al-Hakim represents an insult to the Iraqi people," said Hassan al-Shebli, a 45-year-old store owner who was among the protesters. "The Americans should avoid such irresponsible acts if they want to establish stability in the country."

 

Hundreds also took to the streets in Baghdad's main Shiite district of Sadr City and the southern Shiite cities of Karbala and Basra to protest the detention and call for an investigation.

 

But the protests were relatively small considering the influence of the al-Hakim family, indicating they were mainly aimed at sending a warning to the Americans.

 

"What happened is unacceptable," Shiite lawmaker Hamid Majid Moussa told Al-Forat television. "The Iraqi government and the American forces must put an end to such transgressions," Shiite lawmaker Hamid Majid Moussa told Al-Forat television.

 

The station is just one part of the multilayered clout of the al-Hakim family.

Al-Hakim's father, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, met with U.S.President George W. Bush at the White House in December. He is the leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or SCIRI, the country's largest political force.

 

The bloc carries the strongest voice in the 275-seat parliament and holds critical sway over the fate of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. It also maintains very close ties to Iran, which hosted the elder al-Hakim and other SCIRI officials before the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

 

In December, American forces seized two Iranian security agents at the elder al-Hakim's compound in Baghdad. Six other Iranians were arrested Jan. 11 at an Iranian liaison office in northern Iraq. The U.S. military said they were members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard. Tehran denies the charges.

 

Washington has repeatedly accused Iran of funneling weapons to militants, including lethal roadside bombs that have targeted U.S. troops.

 

The U.S. ambassador to Iraq tried to defuse any showdowns with Shiites that could upset a 10-day-old offensive seeking to reclaim Baghdad's streets from militants and sectarian deaths squads. Shiite militias appeared to clear the way for the effort by rolling back fighters and checkpoints.

 

"I am sorry about the arrest," Khalilzad said. "We don't know the circumstances of the arrest and we are investigating and we don't mean any disrespect to Al-Sayed Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim or his family."

 

Khalilzad promised: "We will find out what has happened."

The U.S. Embassy said al-Hakim "was not singled out" and "soldiers were following standard procedure" at the border crossing.

 

"There were some serious allegations made here about the way that the arrest was conducted and the investigation is going to examine how the event unfolded," embassy spokesman Lou Fintor said Saturday.

Amar al-Hakim heads a charity dedicated to the memory of his uncle, Grand

Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, who was killed along with scores of others in a car bombing in Najaf in August 2003. His father took over SCIRI after the killings, and Amar is apparently being groomed to take his place someday.

Latest US solution to Iraq's civil war: a three-mile wall

Ewen MacAskill in Washington

Saturday April 21, 2007

The Guardian

The US military is building a three-mile concrete wall in the centre of Baghdad along the most murderous faultline between Sunni and Shia Muslims.

 

The wall, which recognises the reality of the hardening sectarian divide in Baghdad, is a central part of George Bush's final push to pacify the capital. Work began on April 10 under cover of darkness and is due for completion by the end of the month.

 

The highly symbolic wall has evoked comparisons to the barriers dividing Protestants and Catholics in Belfast and Israelis and Palestinians along the length of the West Bank.

 

Captain Scott McLearn, who is based at Camp Victory, the US base on the outskirts of Baghdad, said Shias "are coming in and hitting Sunnis, and Sunnis are retaliating across the street".

 

Although Baghdad is full of barriers and checkpoints, particularly round the Green Zone where the US and British are based along with the Iraq government, this is the first time a wall has been built along sectarian lines.

 

Its construction comes as the security situation appears to be deteriorating despite the recent US troop "surge". This week a bombing at the Sadriya market in the city killed 140 people - the deadliest in the capital since the 2003 invasion.

 

Walls are controversial. The Israeli government insists its wall is effective in reducing suicide bombers but Palestinians, many of whose lives it has seriously disrupted, as well as some Israelis argue that it consolidates divisions.

 

The Baghdad wall, which will be 12ft (3,5 metres) high, is being built by US paratroopers who left Camp Taji, about 20 miles north of the city, on the first night in a dozen trucks carrying stacks of huge concrete barriers, each weighing 14,000 pounds (6,300kg). Cranes, protected by tanks, winched them into place. Building has continued every night since.

 

News of the wall's construction came as the Democratic US Senate leader, Harry Reid, provoked a new row with the White House when he claimed the defence secretary, Robert Gates, and the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, know that "this war is lost". Mr Gates, on a visit to Baghdad yesterday, said: "On the war is lost, I respectfully disagree."

 

The White House repeated that the new strategy, which involves sending more US troops to Baghdad, is showing tentative signs of working.

 

Since the US-led invasion, "ethnic cleansing" has resulted in population shifts that have left Baghdad increasingly divided on sectarian grounds, separated by the Tigris which runs through the centre of the city. Sunnis are consolidating on the west side and Shias on the east. The wall is being built round the biggest remaining Sunni enclave on the east bank, at Adhamiya.

 

Referred to by US troops as the Great Wall of Adhamiya, it is surrounded on three sides by Shia neighbourhoods and has been the scene of some of the city's worst violence.

 

There was confusion about the wall at US HQ. Major-General William Caldwell, the usual US spokesman in Baghdad, said on Wednesday he was unaware of efforts to build a wall. "Our goal is to unify Baghdad, not subdivide it into separate [enclaves]," he said. But a US military press release from Camp Victory provided extensive details about the construction. It said: "The area the wall will protect is the largest predominately Sunni neighbourhood in east Baghdad. The wall is one of the centrepieces of a new strategy by coalition and Iraqi forces to break the cycle of sectarian violence."

 

The strategy involves creating a series of gated communities, in which US and

Iraqi troops control entry and exits. The aim is to try to prevent movement by insurgents, in particular suicide bombers.

Residents of Adhamiya had mixed feelings. Ahmed Abdul-Sattar, a government worker, said: "I don't think this wall will solve the city's serious security problems. It will only increase the separation between our people, which has been made so much worse by the war."