Too Much Money Spent in Iraq for Too Few Results - Stated By Special Inspector Gen.

http://www.military.com/daily-news/...t-in-iraq-for-too-few-results.html?ESRC=eb.nl


Mar 06, 2013
Associated Press| by Lara Jakes


WASHINGTON -- Ten years and $60 billion in American taxpayer funds later, Iraq is still so unstable and broken that even its leaders question whether U.S. efforts to rebuild the war-torn nation were worth the cost.

In his final report to Congress, Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Stuart Bowen's conclusion was all too clear: Since the invasion a decade ago this month, the U.S. has spent too much money in Iraq for too few results.

The reconstruction effort "grew to a size much larger than was ever anticipated," Bowen told The Associated Press in a preview of his last audit of U.S. funds spent in Iraq, to be released Wednesday. "Not enough was accomplished for the size of the funds expended."

In interviews with Bowen, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said the U.S. funding "could have brought great change in Iraq" but fell short too often. "There was misspending of money," said al-Maliki, a Shiite Muslim whose sect makes up about 60 percent of Iraq's population.

Iraqi Parliament Speaker Osama al-Nujaifi, the country's top Sunni Muslim official, told auditors that the rebuilding efforts "had unfavorable outcomes in general."

"You think if you throw money at a problem, you can fix it," Kurdish government official Qubad Talabani, son of Iraqi president Jalal Talabani, told auditors. "It was just not strategic thinking."

The abysmal Iraq results forecast what could happen in Afghanistan, where U.S. taxpayers have so far spent $90 billion in reconstruction projects during a 12-year military campaign that, for the most part, ends in 2014.

Shortly after the March 2003 invasion, Congress set up a $2.4 billion fund to help ease the sting of war for Iraqis. It aimed to rebuild Iraq's water and electricity systems; provide food, health care and governance for its people; and take care of those who were forced from their homes in the fighting. Fewer than six months later, President George W. Bush asked for $20 billion more to further stabilize Iraq and help turn it into an ally that could gain economic independence and reap global investments.

To date, the U.S. has spent more than $60 billion in reconstruction grants to help Iraq get back on its feet after the country that has been broken by more than two decades of war, sanctions and dictatorship. That works out to about $15 million a day.

And yet Iraq's government is rife with corruption and infighting. Baghdad's streets are still cowed by near-daily deadly bombings. A quarter of the country's 31 million population lives in poverty, and few have reliable electricity and clean water.

Overall, including all military and diplomatic costs and other aid, the U.S. has spent at least $767 billion since the American-led invasion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. National Priorities Project, a U.S. research group that analyzes federal data, estimated the cost at $811 billion, noting that some funds are still being spent on ongoing projects.

Sen. Susan Collins, a member of the Senate committee that oversees U.S. funding, said the Bush administration should have agreed to give the reconstruction money to Iraq as a loan in 2003 instead as an outright gift.

"It's been an extraordinarily disappointing effort and, largely, a failed program," Collins, R-Maine, said in an interview Tuesday. "I believe, had the money been structured as a loan in the first place, that we would have seen a far more responsible approach to how the money was used, and lower levels of corruption in far fewer ways."

In numerous interviews with Iraqi and U.S. officials, and though multiple examples of thwarted or defrauded projects, Bowen's report laid bare a trail of waste, including:

-- In Iraq's eastern Diyala province, a crossroads for Shiite militias, Sunni insurgents and Kurdish squatters, the U.S. began building a 3,600-bed prison in 2004 but abandoned the project after three years to flee a surge in violence. The half-completed Khan Bani Sa'ad Correctional Facility cost American taxpayers $40 million but sits in rubble, and Iraqi Justice Ministry officials say they have no plans to ever finish or use it.

-- Subcontractors for Anham LLC, based in Vienna, Va., overcharged the U.S. government thousands of dollars for supplies, including $900 for a control switch valued at $7.05 and $80 for a piece of pipe that costs $1.41. Anham was hired to maintain and operate warehouses and supply centers near Baghdad's international airport and the Persian Gulf port at Umm Qasr.

-- A $108 million wastewater treatment center in the city of Fallujah, a former al-Qaida stronghold in western Iraq, will have taken eight years longer to build than planned when it is completed in 2014 and will only service 9,000 homes. Iraqi officials must provide an additional $87 million to hook up most of the rest of the city, or 25,000 additional homes.

-- After blowing up the al-Fatah bridge in north-central Iraq during the invasion and severing a crucial oil and gas pipeline, U.S. officials decided to try to rebuild the pipeline under the Tigris River at a cost of $75 million. A geological study predicted the project might fail, and it did: Eventually, the bridge and pipelines were repaired at an additional cost of $29 million.

-- A widespread ring of fraud led by a former U.S. Army officer resulted in tens of millions of dollars in kickbacks and the criminal convictions of 22 people connected to government contracts for bottled water and other supplies at the Iraqi reconstruction program's headquarters at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait.

In too many cases, Bowen concluded, U.S. officials did not consult with Iraqis closely or deeply enough to determine what reconstruction projects were really needed or, in some cases, wanted. As a result, Iraqis took limited interest in the work, often walking away from half-finished programs, refusing to pay their share, or failing to maintain completed projects once they were handed over.

Deputy Prime Minister Hussain al-Shahristani, a Shiite, described the projects as well intentioned, but poorly prepared and inadequately supervised.

The missed opportunities were not lost on at least 15 senior State and Defense department officials interviewed in the report, including ambassadors and generals, who were directly involved in rebuilding Iraq.

One key lesson learned in Iraq, Deputy Secretary of State William Burns told auditors, is that the U.S. cannot expect to "do it all and do it our way. We must share the burden better multilaterally and engage the host country constantly on what is truly needed."

Army Chief of Staff Ray Odierno, who was the top U.S. military commander in Iraq from 2008 to 2010, said "it would have been better to hold off spending large sums of money" until the country stabilized.

About a third of the $60 billion was spent to train and equip Iraqi security forces, which had to be rebuilt after the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority disbanded Saddam's army in 2003. Today, Iraqi forces have varying successes in safekeeping the public and only limited ability to secure their land, air and sea borders.

The report also cites Defense Secretary Leon Panetta as saying that the 2011 withdrawal of American troops from Iraq weakened U.S. influence in Baghdad. Panetta has since left office when former Sen. Chuck Hagel took over the defense job last week. Washington is eyeing a similar military drawdown next year in Afghanistan, where U.S. taxpayers have spent $90 billion so far on rebuilding projects.

The Afghanistan effort risks falling into the same problems that mired Iraq if oversight isn't coordinated better. In Iraq, officials were too eager to build in the middle of a civil war, and too often raced ahead without solid plans or back-up plans, the report concluded.

Most of the work was done in piecemeal fashion, as no single government agency had responsibility for all of the money spent. The State Department, for example, was supposed to oversee reconstruction strategy starting in 2004, but controlled only about 10 percent of the money at stake. The vast majority of the projects -- 75 percent -- were paid for by the Defense Department.

---

Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction
http://www.sigir.mil/learningfromiraq/index.html

 

Don't forget Dick Cheney (Barack Obama's cousin) owns Haliburton...the company that got the U.S. contract in the middle east. It's all a sham bro-ham...and we eat it up like skittles.

 

Ha ha, welcome to the center/middle, IamMe. Sucker you are not. :smt038

Yup too @ Barack and Chaney's connection. It's actually Mrs. Chaney he is related to by blood. And Bush is in there too. Makes you wonder...are POTUS's chosen and not really 'elected'. At least the Vatican is open about their method.

 

All wars over history trace back to one or a few reasons:

Women

Land & or resources

Money

Often times, a war serves to distract those watching and participating from true fact and hard eveidence.

Plus,

Iraq and other middle eastern countries are in such disrepaire, it would take ages for them to come to commonalities. Money cannnot buy shared characterists, values and norms, which bind people together, thus lowering violence all togther.

 

No sunshine, not even the Pope is elected. Anyone in a position of power is carefully chosen. It's just how it is. I don't complain about it...but I do realize that it's just the way it is. I don't make the rules, I just play by them.

 

The 2 greatest boosts to the global economy? War and depression...look it up

 

I am only thinking about my economy right now, and it's depressed.:smt100

 

Sometimes, just sometimes too, wars occur because a leader is delusional and pathologically maniacal.

My point exactly. Which is why I used that analogy with our highest office.

 

The loss of money is bad, but the loss in lives is the real tragedy. I feel sorry for all those soldiers who went over there thinking they were making a difference and fighting for a noble cause. I also feel for the Iraqi and Afghan families torn apart by living in a war zone.

 

Well there is definitely no democratic process in my little world. Jamahl is the president of his residence and the dictator of his children! Lol.

THE PRINCE OF ZAMUNDA!!!

free image hosting

 

Remember that $3-4 billion dollars sent to Iraq that suddenly went 'unaccounted for'??

In the real world that's called a BANK ROBBERY.


The funds spent to rebuild Iraq has been the biggest theft in recent American history.

THere should have been direct Congressional oversight for every single fucking dime spent to rebuild after the war.

There were people who literally incorporated and become 'contractors', were given multi-million dollar no bid contracts, made a half ass effort to provide less than satisfactory service, and left Iraq with several million clean and LEGAL in their bank accounts.
Stories like this bother me because it shows just how corrupt the federal government can really be when elected and unelected government officials rig the system.

 

Damn! Preach! :smt023

 

Looking back to the time when president George W. Bush decided to send troops into Afghanistan, I felt it was a necessary move because Osama Bin Laden was over there. I supported that move. But Iraq, I didn't support that decision because Saddam Hussein wouldn't allow Al Qaida or any other group to run roughshod over his regime if they were able to get in. Hussein was a sociopath but not crazy. His country and regime were heavily scrutinized. I was more afraid of North Korea. But, some folks proffited from this war while the death toll surpassed the lives lost on September, 11th, 2001.

 

What's interesting is that when they were trying to convince Congress about who was gonna pay for the Invasion of Iraq, everybody assured Congress that Iraq would pay for everything with their Oil Reserves.

And if you think this is shocking, wait until the final report for Afghanistan comes out.

 

Study: Iraq War Cost 190K Lives, $2.2 Trillion

http://www.military.com/daily-news/...r-cost-190k-lives-22-trillion.html?ESRC=eb.nl

Mar 15, 2013

Deutsche Presse-Agentur| by Pat Reber


WASHINGTON -- The U.S.-led war in Iraq claimed 190,000 lives and will cost the U.S. government at least $2.2 trillion, according to the findings of a project at Brown University released Thursday.

The Costs of War report, released ahead of the 10th anniversary of the war on March 20, said that the financial calculation included "substantial" costs to care for wounded U.S. veterans.

The total estimate far outstrips the initial projection by President George W. Bush's government that the war would cost $50 billion to $60 billion.

More than 70 percent of those who died of direct war violence in Iraq were civilians, or an estimated 134,000 people. A small number of the 190,000 dead were U.S. casualties: 4,488 U.S. military members and at least 3,400 U.S. contractors, according to the report.

"The staggering number of deaths in Iraq is hard to fathom, but each of these individuals has to count and be counted," said Catherine Lutz, a professor at Rhode Island-based Brown University who helped lead the study.

The U.S. government has spent $60 billion on reconstruction, but little has gone to restoring destroyed infrastructure. Most of the money has gone to the Iraqi military and police, the report noted.

"Nearly every government that goes to war underestimates its duration, neglects to tally all the costs and overestimates the political objectives that will be accomplished by war's violence," said Neta Crawford, a professor who helped coordinate the study.

The U.S. State Department conceded that both countries made "enormous sacrifices." Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, responding to the Costs of War report, said that the United States and Iraq have forged a "strategically important bilateral relationship."

"Compared to where we were in the Saddam era, we now have a bilateral security agreement. We have deep economic interests and ties. We have a security relationship. We have a political relationship," she said.

The Costs of War project involved 30 economists, anthropologists, lawyers, humanitarian personnel and political scientists from 15 universities, the United Nations and other organizations.

 

Blackbull,the people of the US will never get that money back or the 5,000+ lives of American soldiers all because of a lie. No one learned from Vietnam because the ones who caused Iraq war were draft dodgers or deferment freaks.

 

TRUTH!

Whats interesting is those same people won't say shit about the money being spent in Iraq/Afghanistan for roads, schools, infrastructure.

Congress says there is no money to educate American children and repair and upgrade American infrastructure.

Shit, the people of Iraq/Afghanistan have Universal Healthcare that is being funded by U.S. Taxpayers.

Pure Insanity!

 

Imagine what we could have done for our people in this country with all the money, blood and treasure we spent on bastards who could give a damn about us. All the more reason I agree with Rand Paul. Get rid of spending money to those nations overseas who do not give a shit about us.

 

Except without that bribe money we pay in foreign aid, nations like Saudi Arabia and China are able to spread their influence by filling the void we left behind.

You have to pay for loyalty in today's world. I don't know if we can divorce ourselves from foreign affairs and let the world take care of itself.

 

Costs of US wars linger for more than 100 years

http://news.msn.com/politics/costs-of-us-wars-linger-for-more-than-100-years

Post-service compensation costs for U.S. veterans have totaled more than $50 billion since 2003, a new study by The Associated Press shows.

If history is any judge, the U.S. government will be paying for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars for the next century as service members and their families grapple with the sacrifices of combat.

An Associated Press analysis of federal payment records found that the government is still making monthly payments to relatives of Civil War veterans — 148 years after the conflict ended.

At the 10-year anniversary of the start of the Iraq War, more than $40 billion a year is going to compensate veterans and survivors from the Spanish-American War from 1898, World War I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the two Iraq campaigns and the Afghanistan conflict. And those costs are rising rapidly.

U.S. Sen. Patty Murray said such expenses should remind the nation about war's long-lasting financial toll.

"When we decide to go to war, we have to consciously be also thinking about the cost," said Murray, D-Wash., adding that her WWII veteran father's disability benefits helped feed their family.

Alan Simpson, a former Republican senator and veteran who co-chaired President Barack Obama's deficit committee in 2010, said government leaders working to limit the national debt should make sure that survivors of veterans need the money they are receiving.

"Without question, I would affluence-test all of those people," Simpson said.

With greater numbers of troops surviving combat injuries because of improvements in battlefield medicine and technology, the costs of disability payments are set to rise much higher.

The AP identified the disability and survivor benefits during an analysis of millions of federal payment records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

To gauge the postwar costs of each conflict, the AP looked at four compensation programs that identify recipients by war: disabled veterans; survivors of those who died on active duty or from a service-related disability; low-income wartime vets over age 65 or disabled; and low-income survivors of wartime veterans or their disabled children.

THE IRAQ WARS AND AFGHANISTAN
So far, the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and the first Persian Gulf conflict in the early 1990s are costing about $12 billion a year to compensate those who have left military service or family members of those who have died.

Those post-service compensation costs have totaled more than $50 billion since 2003, not including expenses of medical care and other benefits provided to veterans, and are poised to grow for many years to come.

The new veterans are filing for disabilities at historic rates, with about 45 percent of those from Iraq and Afghanistan seeking compensation for injuries. Many are seeking compensation for a variety of ailments at once.

Experts see a variety of factors driving that surge, including a bad economy that's led more jobless veterans to seek the financial benefits they've earned, troops who survive wounds of war, and more awareness about head trauma and mental health.

VIETNAM WAR
It's been 40 years since the U.S. ended its involvement in the Vietnam War, and yet payments for the conflict are still rising.

Now above $22 billion annually, Vietnam compensation costs are roughly twice the size of the FBI's annual budget. And while many disabled Vietnam vets have been compensated for post-traumatic stress disorder, hearing loss or general wounds, other ailments are positioning the war to have large costs even after veterans die.

Based on an uncertain link to the defoliant Agent Orange that was used in Vietnam, federal officials approved diabetes a decade ago as an ailment that qualifies for cash compensation — and it is now the most compensated ailment for Vietnam vets.

The VA also recently included heart disease among the Vietnam medical problems that qualify, and the agency is seeing thousands of new claims for that condition. Simpson said he has a lot of concerns about the government agreeing to automatically compensate for those diseases.

"That has been terribly abused," Simpson said.

Since heart disease is common among older Americans and is the nation's leading cause of death, the future deaths of thousands of Vietnam veterans could be linked to their service and their benefits passed along to survivors.

A congressional analysis estimated the cost of fighting the war was $738 billion in 2011 dollars, and the postwar benefits for veterans and families have separately cost some $270 billion since 1970, according to AP calculations.

WORLD WAR I, WORLD WAR II AND THE KOREAN WAR
World War I, which ended 94 years ago, continues to cost taxpayers about $20 million every year. World War II? $5 billion.

Compensation for WWII veterans and families didn't peak until 1991 — 46 years after the war ended — and annual costs since then have declined by only about 25 percent. Korean War costs appear to be leveling off at about $2.8 billion per year.

Of the 2,289 survivors drawing cash linked to WWI, about one-third are spouses, and dozens of them are over 100 years in age.

Some of the other recipients are curious: Forty-seven of the spouses are under the age of 80, meaning they weren't born until years after the war ended. Many of those women were in their 20s and 30s when their aging spouses died in the 1960s and 1970s, and they've been drawing the monthly payments since.

CIVIL WAR AND SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR
There are 10 living recipients of benefits tied to the 1898 Spanish-American War at a total cost of about $50,000 per year. The Civil War payments are going to two children of veterans — one in North Carolina and one in Tennessee— each for $876 per year.

Surviving spouses can qualify for lifetime benefits when troops from current wars have a service-linked death. Children under the age of 18 can also qualify, and those benefits are extended for a lifetime if the person is permanently incapable of self-support due to a disability before the age of 18.

Citing privacy, officials did not disclose the names of the two children getting the Civil War benefits.

Their ages suggest the one in Tennessee was born around 1920 and the North Carolina survivor was born around 1930. A veteran who was young during the Civil War would likely have been roughly 70 or 80 years old when the two people were born.

That's not unheard of. At age 86, Juanita Tudor Lowrey is the daughter of a Civil War veteran. Her father, Hugh Tudor, fought in the Union army. After his first wife died, Tudor was 73 when he remarried her 33-year-old mother in 1920. Lowrey was born in 1926.

Lowrey, who lives in Kearney, Mo., suspects the marriage might have been one of convenience, with her father looking for a housekeeper and her mother looking for some security. He died a couple years after she was born, and Lowrey received pension benefits until she was 18.

Now, Lowrey said, she usually encounters skepticism from people after she tells them she's a daughter of a Civil War veteran.
"We're few and far between," Lowrey said.