Rebuilding Iraq an unfinished job ($2 billion left; 500 projects remain)

[Barrett808]

Rebuilding Iraq an unfinished job
U.S. lacks coherent plan to transfer effort to Iraqis, report concludes
By Andy Mosher and Griff Witte
Updated: 6:11 a.m. ET Aug. 2, 2006

NASIRIYAH, Iraq, Aug. 1 - A flailing Iraq reconstruction effort that has been dominated for more than three years by U.S. dollars and companies is being transferred to Iraqis, leaving them the challenge of completing a long list of projects left unfinished by the Americans.

While the handover is occurring gradually, it comes as U.S. money dwindles and American officials face a Sept. 30 deadline for choosing which projects to fund with the remaining $2 billion of the $21 billion rebuilding program. More than 500 planned projects have not been started, and the United States lacks a coherent plan for transferring authority to Iraqi control, a report released Tuesday concludes.

In some cases, Iraqis are having to take over projects from American construction firms that were removed from jobs because of poor performance. For example, in Nasiriyah, about 300 miles southeast of Baghdad, the Iraqi firm Al-Basheer Co. was recently given a prison-construction contract that a huge American conglomerate, Parsons Global Services Inc., lost. Parsons was six months overdue with the project and had completed only a third of the job.

"This is the fourth quarter" of the U.S.-led reconstruction, said Stuart W. Bowen Jr., special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, whose office is issuing the report. "The Iraqis are going to have to develop their own system."

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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14142569

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