Auditors: Billions Wasted in Iraq War

[Evermore]

Auditors: Billions Wasted in Iraq War
Thursday, February 15, 2007 11:20 AM EST
The Associated Press
By HOPE YEN

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. government is at risk of squandering significantly more money in an Iraq war and reconstruction effort that has already wasted or otherwise overcharged taxpayers billions of dollars, federal investigators said Thursday.

The three top auditors overseeing contract work in Iraq told a House committee of $10 billion in spending that was wasteful or poorly tracked. They pointed to numerous instances in which Defense and State department officials condoned or otherwise allowed poor accounting, repeated work delays, bloated expenses and payments for work shoddily or never done by U.S. contractors.


That problem could worsen, the Government Accountability Office said, given limited improvement so far by the Department of Defense even as the Bush administration prepares to boost the U.S. presence in Iraq.

Given "the need for continued support for deployed forces, it is essential for DOD to address these shortcomings if the department is to increase its return on its investment in Iraq," said David M. Walker, comptroller general of the GAO, Congress' auditing arm, in prepared testimony.

The auditors' joint appearance before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee comes as Congress is preparing for a showdown with President Bush next month over his budget request of nearly $100 billion to pay for more U.S. troops in Iraq.

Also testifying Thursday were Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, and William Reed, director of the Defense Contract Audit Agency.

According to their testimony, the investigators:

—Found overpricing and waste in Iraq contracts amounting to $4.9 billion since the Defense Contract Audit Agency began its work in 2003, although some of that money has since been recovered. Another $5.1 billion in expenses were charged without proper documentation.

—Urged the Pentagon to reconsider its growing reliance on outside contractors to run the nation's wars and reconstruction efforts. Layers of subcontractors, poor documentation and lack of strong contract management are rampant and promote waste even after the GAO first warned of problems 15 years ago.

—Pointed to growing Iraqi sectarian violence as a significant factor behind wasted U.S. dollars. Iraqi officials must begin to take primary responsibility for reconstruction efforts, an uncertain goal given widespread corruption in Iraq and the local government's inability to fund projects.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who chairs the panel, has pledged scores of investigations of fraud, waste and abuse — with subpoenas if necessary — on the Bush administration's watch. He decried the overpricing identified by the DCAA, a figure that has tripled since last fall.

Of the $10 billion in overpriced contracts or undocumented costs, more than $2.7 billion were charged by Halliburton Co., the oil-field services firm once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney.

"According to the Pentagon auditors, more than one in six dollars they have audited in Iraq is suspect," Waxman said. "It's no wonder taxpayers across the country are fed up and demanding real oversight."

Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., the top Republican on the panel, pointed to ongoing, "systemic" problems in Iraq contracting.

"This much is clear: Poor security, an arcane, ill-suited management structure, and frequent management changes have produced a succession of troubled acquisitions," he said.

Bowen said his office had expanded an investigation of police training contracts awarded by the State Department. An audit by Bowen last month found tens of millions of dollars wasted on a DynCorp International contract to build an Olympic-size swimming pool for a police academy in Baghdad that has yet to be used. The pool as well as VIP trailers were ordered by Iraqi officials but never authorized by the State Department.

[Xaiveir]

Funny thing is, there are people that are omg surprised about this.

[Jay]

Canada is looking better and better lately.

[Xaiveir]

If the weather was a little warmer, i may have already have moved.

[Evermore]

i'm thinking austrailia

[Xaiveir]

i'm thinking austrailia

Too many poison snakes and spiders for my taste. Would love to visit there someday.

[Jay]

I'm afraid if I ever went back to the US to visit my plane would crash on a remote island 1000 miles off course.

[Arlos]

If I could find a job overseas, in, say, England, Australia, or maybe Amsterdam or perhaps even Italy (where I have family), I'd probably go. The trick is finding the job there...

-Arlos

[Xaiveir]

I'm afraid if I ever went back to the US to visit my plane would crash on a remote island 1000 miles off course.

You could befriend a coconut , paint a face on him, so you do not go crazy from no contact with humans, and have someone to talk too.

[Evermore]

he would just cut a hole in it...

and a small one at that

[Xaiveir]

he would just cut a hole in it...

and a small one at that

Zing

[Evermore]

Jay is the king of all moderators!

[Jay]

he would just cut a hole in it...

and a small one at that

Hey, I'd be cutting an average sized hole in that coconut. Tell them Triel! =P

[Tikker]

If I could find a job overseas, in, say, England, Australia, or maybe Amsterdam or perhaps even Italy (where I have family), I'd probably go. The trick is finding the job there...

-Arlos

you mean there isn't a huge demand for people with astro-physics degrees?!?!?!??!?!?!!?

[Tossica]

I blame the liberals. If they weren't paying so much attention to how much is being spent, it wouldn't be so expensive to hide the facts!

[Arlos]

Actually, Tikker, if I DID have an astrophysics degree, especially a PhD with published post-doc research, it would be far easier to find a job overseas than it is in the technical field. There are a lot of astronomical and physics research institutes in Europe, starting with CERN, and a PhD astrophsicist won't have much of a harder time finding work there than he would in the US, because it's an uncommon degree.

CS/Engineering, however, is quite common, there's lots of local pool to draw from, so they don't need to import people.

That's the bugger about hard science degrees, really. They're functionally worthless in your field as a BS or even a MS. It's not til you actually get a PhD that they even begin to take you seriously, and even then, you'll need to do a few years of post-doc work to get anywhere. Once you've done that though, you can go about anywhere. On the other hand, for the tech field, not many people go above a BS, and you can get good jobs off the bat. Not to mention, tech jobs pay more; a good starting programmer will frequently make significantly more than a PhD astronomer.

So, if you end up going for a career in Astrophysics (or physics, math, etc.), it's because you love it, not because it'll make you rich. I loved it, I just wasn't quite good enough at high-level math to hack it.

-Arlos

[Lueyen]

Funny thing is, there are people that are omg surprised about this.

The GAO has been alarmed regarding DOD contract management for more then a decade. Although there have been some efforts made to rectify the short comings, it's been minimal and slow. The dynamics of Iraq present a situation that amplifies the holes in DOD policy due to many situations that call for contract types that are out of the historical norm and the least likely to have been reformed.

[Evermore]

I blame the liberals. If they weren't paying so much attention to how much is being spent, it wouldn't be so expensive to hide the facts!

i lol'd

[Lyion]

Government does nothing cheaply or efficiently. I can only imagine the costs if they tried to implement universal health care. Canada might look with pity on our tax rates then.

[Snero]

wow the irony, the government does nothing cheaply yet per capita, americans pay twice as much for health care then canadians do. And Canada is not a good example of value for money too, considering canadians pay the most out of any country with universal health care. I much rather pay the slight tax increase rather then line the pockets of a few people leeching the system for all it's worth

[Lueyen]

rather then line the pockets of a few people leeching the system for all it's worth

like malpractice lawyers?

[Tossica]

rather then line the pockets of a few people leeching the system for all it's worth

like malpractice lawyers?

Like FUCKING INSURANCE COMPANIES!!!!

[Snero]

everybody, theres way too many people fighting to get their hands on every penny of health care spending

[Evermore]

rather then line the pockets of a few people leeching the system for all it's worth

like malpractice lawyers?

Like FUCKING INSURANCE COMPANIES!!!!

like both imo

[Eziekial]

It amazes me that most of the people who cry foul about how fucked up our government is concerning defense (which it has been it's responsibility since it's inception) also cry that they want the same organization to run our health care.....