Iraqi Police Barracks Go Unrepaired

Source: NY Times

More than a year after the Parsons Corporation, the American contracting giant, promised Congress that it would fix the disastrous plumbing and shoddy construction in barracks the company built at the Baghdad police academy, the ceilings are still stained with excrement, parts of the structures are crumbling and sections of the buildings are unusable because the toilets are filthy and nonfunctioning.

The project, where United States inspectors found giant cracks snaking through newly built walls and human waste dripping from ceilings, became one of the most visible examples of a $45 billion American reconstruction program that is widely seen as a failure.

The project also became an argument for the value of government oversight when, in response to the inspectors’ findings, a Parsons executive told Congress in September 2006 that the company would fix the problems at no cost to the United States. Parsons now says that it did so, directing an Iraqi subcontractor to correct deficiencies at no additional charge.

But Iraqi police recruits, instructors and officers at the Parsons-built barracks and classrooms on Sunday complained bitterly about the buildings’ condition, calling the contractor negligent and asking why the problems had not yet been fixed. The structures were refurbished or built from scratch at an overall cost of $72 million in American taxpayer money.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/06/world/middleeast/06police.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

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Showers at the Baghdad police academy. Repairs were promised in 2006, but because pipes keep leaking sewage, buildings have little or no running water.

$72 million more thrown in to blackhole of contractor's coffers, yet Chimpy can't fund SCHIP.

the hallmark of the Republican Party and their cronies. :sarcasm:

:puke:

you remember him - a democrat with a spine, ethics, balls, and a mission. not only would he keep things on the table, he'd inspect the table itself to make sure it could support the weight it was designed to carry.