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evince
07-29-2006, 12:29 PM
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/30/world/middleeast/30reconstruct.html?hp&ex=1154232000&en=8b11e105dbfa0141&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Care4all
08-08-2006, 09:20 AM
desh, post it, the NYTimes does not let you in to read it... :( unless you sign up....

OrnotBitwise
08-08-2006, 09:26 AM
desh, post it, the NYTimes does not let you in to read it... :( unless you sign up....
I think that this is the same audit.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iraqcosts30jul30,1,2110160.story?coll=la-headlines-world

LadyT
08-08-2006, 10:20 AM
LA Times is prompting me to sign up too.

OrnotBitwise
08-08-2006, 10:22 AM
LA Times is prompting me to sign up too.
Really? That's weird. I never sign up for any of those sites since I get too much spam already. Must be because of my IP. Hang on.


U.S. Agency Hid Cost Overruns in Iraq, Audit Finds
The report says expenses in projects that exceeded budgets were concealed in unrelated accounts.
By Greg Miller, Times Staff Writer
July 30, 2006

WASHINGTON — The U.S. agency responsible for administering $1.4 billion in reconstruction funds in Iraq has sought to hide major cost overruns on high-profile projects from Congress by engaging in questionable accounting maneuvers, according to a federal audit released late Friday.

The agency has masked budget spillovers on a children's hospital in the southern city of Basra and other facilities by hiding the expenditures in seemingly unrelated accounts, the report from the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction says.

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Overall, the report found a "lack of effective program management" by the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, which oversees U.S. reconstruction spending in Iraq and other countries.

The accounting issues are the latest in a series of problems, including fraud allegations and the soaring costs of protecting work sites and crews from attacks, that have beset the massive rebuilding effort in Iraq.

The report focuses on cost overruns and construction delays at the children's hospital, whose advocates include First Lady Laura Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. But the document also points to similar accounting irregularities on other projects, including a power station in Musayyib and an electricity project in Baghdad.

USAID has continued to list the hospital project's cost at $50 million in reports to Congress, even as its actual budget has ballooned to more than $149 million, the audit found. The discrepancy was disguised by spreading indirect costs associated with the project — such as security and transportation expenditures — to other accounts, according to the report.

As a result, "millions of dollars in indirect costs that should have been applied to the hospital project were applied to other USAID projects, resulting in a serious misstatement of hospital project costs," the report says. At the same time, a facility that was supposed to be finished in December is now scheduled for completion in July 2007.

uscitizen
08-08-2006, 02:19 PM
Of course they lied, the truth would have made the administration look like fools or thieves.

uscitizen
08-11-2006, 02:36 PM
Why do you think most of this money was obtained under supplemental spending bills ? Less oversight needed for the supplemental bill money,sort of like handing out cash....wait didn't I hear something about that, bathrooms full of cash or something....