A series of reports and audits presented to the US Congress by the office of Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq, indicates glaring problems with the US role in the country.
The Boston Globe reports that in an audit presented Monday, Mr. Bowen's office found that US efforts to train Iraqi provincial governments have been hampered by deteriorating security woes and the inability of the US State Department and the Pentagon to find a way to work together.
The training, done by "provincial reconstruction teams" of soldiers, aid workers, and diplomats, is meant to coach local authorities in Iraq on how to deliver basic services to their municipalities, and to take over duties from the US-led coalition, such as running elections and making decisions over local budgets.
The teams were considered such a critical part of the Bush administration's strategy to build up the new Iraqi government that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice presided over the inauguration of the first team in Mosul last November.
But disagreements over which branch of the US government would fund and protect the teams, along with threats and attacks on personnel, have greatly hindered the effort.
One year after the provincial-training program began, the audit says that only four provinces out of 13 had US personnel that were "generally able" to carry out their mission. Of the other nine provinces, "four were somewhat able, three were less able and two were generally unable." In the two provinces labelled "generally unable," Anbar and Basra, US personnel could not work with Iraqi counterparts "because of the risk of violence, seriously hindering their mission of mentoring and skill-building."
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United Press International reports that the "austere and dangerous" conditions make it difficult for them to attract qualified people. The inspector general's report said that there is a full staff in only one province, Dhi Qar.
To address shortfalls, the report suggests the staffs be transferred from the Anbar and Basra Provincial Reconstruction Teams to other functioning but short-handed PRTs. The security situations there are so dire the staffs can rarely if ever meet with the local government and business leaders they are supposed to be helping. The Anbar Provincial Council actually meets in Baghdad.
But even in Shiite-controlled Karbala, Wasit and Qadisiya provinces, the PRTs are frequently unable to carry out their mission because of security. US policy requires PRT members to travel with at least three armored vehicles and eight shooters for protection. Coalition military forces in the south – British, Polish and Italian – do not provide that level of escort so they teams are often stuck in bases or at embassies.
The Globe report quoted a written response from the State Department's Near Eastern Affairs Bureau as saying "the audit did not reflect the 'significant progress' that had been made by the teams, and ... their presence in dangerous provinces 'outweighs the risks.'"
Meanwhile, The Boston Globe also reported that the State Department and the Pentagon frequently clashed over who was supposed to provide security for the provincial teams, and also who would pay for the security.
The audit said the State Department and the Department of Defense have argued over who is responsible for the security of the teams and who should pay the bill for the programs, noting that the two branches of government still have not come to an agreement on how to work together.
The audit on the special provincial teams was only one of three contained in Bowen's report. The Los Angeles Times reports that the second audit noted that the Pentagon cannot account for 14,030 weapons in Iraq, "almost 4 percent of the semiautomatic pistols, assault rifles, machine guns, rocket-propelled-grenade launchers and other weapons it has been supplying to Iraq since the end of 2003." Many other weapons that are not missing cannot be repaired because parts or technical manuals are not available.
The third audit said significant challenges remain that put at risk the "US military's goal of strengthening Iraqi security forces by transferring all logistics operations to the Defense Ministry by the end of 2007."
The audit says there is a "significant risk" that the Iraqi Interior Ministry "will not be capable of assuming and sustaining logistics support for the Iraqi local and national police forces in the near term."
That support includes equipment maintenance, transportation and health resources for soldiers and police.
Fox News reports that the release of the three audits may be part of the reason that Bowen's office is scheduled to be shut down by the Bush administration.
The special IG office, which since 2004 has kept watch over how U.S. taxpayers' funds are being spent rebuilding Iraq, is scheduled to close at the end of fiscal year 2007, next Sept. 30. Its expiration has prompted concerns that new and continuing investigations into waste, fraud and abuse by Iraqis and American contractors will recede into the shadows of the federal bureaucracy. ...
But supporters of shuttering the special IG's office say the agency created by Congress all along was intended to close 10 months after 80 percent of the approximately $20 billion in combined U.S. Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Funds had been spent.
Also last week, Sen. Susan Collins (R) of Maine and Sen. Joe Lieberman (D) of Connecticut sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Ms. Rice accusing defense contractor Kellogg, Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, of impeding the work of Bowen's office.
Last week, the special inspector general's office released a report that accused Kellogg, Brown & Root of "exploiting federal regulations to hide details on its contract performance."
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Feedback appreciated. E-mail Tom Regan.
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