U.S. Spending & Waste in the Reconstruction of Iraq

And more is surfacing as to the totally failed policies of the Iraq invasion, and abandoning the main reasons and missions we sent our military into that region for, and occupation as to the monetary costs, all rubber stamped by congress, all no bid contracts, all borrowed, all on the countries credit card, non paid back yet, congressional rubber stamping and the rapid rising deficits started Before 9/11! How much were the congressional inside traders making off investments as the party in the white house was pretty much meeting with their own party congressional reps?

Recently we had an in-depth investigative series of research papers released on the Human Costs of Iraq as well as estimated monetary costs expected:

Brown University - Iraq: 10 Years After Costs of War - Research Papers

From the Costs of War Project

Now recently released audit reports from U.S. Inspector General Stuart Bowen on the spending and reconstruction {39page pdf} are hitting the media, some of the media.

'Tiny Fraction' Took Advantage During Iraq's Reconstruction

March 22, 2013 - This week, Morning Edition has been marking the 10th anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Steve Inskeep talks to Inspector General Stuart Bowen about his audit report on U.S. spending and waste in the reconstruction of Iraq.

Waste, fraud and abuse commonplace in Iraq reconstruction effort

19 March 2013 - After U.S. and allied warplanes destroyed a key bridge carrying 15 oil and gas pipelines in northern Iraq during the 2003 conflict there, officials in Washington and Baghdad made its postwar reconstruction a top priority. But instead of spending two months to rebuild the span over the Tigris River at an estimated cost of $5 million, they decided for security reasons to bury the pipelines beneath it, at an estimated cost more than five times greater.

What ultimately happened there tells the story — in a microcosm — of a substantial chunk of the massive nine-year U.S. effort to reconstruct Iraq, the second-largest such endeavor in history (only the U.S. investment in Afghanistan has been larger).

Studies conducted before the digging of the new pipelines started showed that the soil was too sandy, but neither the Army Corps of Engineers overseeing the effort nor the main contractor at the site, Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR), heeded the warning. As a result, “tens of millions of dollars (were) wasted on churning sand” without making any headway, as Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Stuart W. Bowen Jr., described it in his recently published final report on the U.S. occupation. read more>>>

And The Winner For The Most Iraq War Contracts Is . . . KBR, With $39.5 Billion In A Decade

March 19 2013 - The accounting of the financial cost of the nearly decade-long Iraq War will go on for years, but a recent analysis has shed light on the companies that made money off the war by providing support services as the privatization of what were former U.S. military operations rose to unprecedented levels.

Private or publicly listed firms received at least $138 billion of U.S. taxpayer money for government contracts for services that included providing private security, building infrastructure and feeding the troops.

Ten contractors received 52 percent of the funds, according to an analysis by the Financial Times that was published Tuesday.The No. 1 recipient?Houston-based energy-focused engineering and construction firm KBR, Inc. (NYSE:KBR), which was spun off from its parent, oilfield services provider Halliburton Co. (NYSE:HAL), in 2007.The company was given $39.5 billion in Iraq-related contracts over the past decade, with many of the deals given without any bidding from competing firms, such as a $568-million contract renewal in 2010 to provide housing, meals, water and bathroom services to soldiers, a deal that led to a Justice Department lawsuit over alleged kickbacks, as reported by Bloomberg. read more>>>

Even though the British press is soft pedaling what might be coming, I can't wait for the The British Iraq War Inquiry final public report to be released sometime in the next couple of months, delayed a couple of times already. What did come out publicly, especially as to the British civilian and military dealings with their counterparts here, spoke volumes of what might have been testified to behind closed doors as well as investigative reports that might have surfaced!