Bricks Made Of Sand: Afghan training base melted in the rain? US wasted billions on botched projects

[kpete]

The United States wasted nearly $500,000 on an Afghan police training center that began to fall apart only months after it was built due to shoddy contractor work, according to a watchdog report released Thursday.

The center’s adobe-style brick buildings were supposed to replicate an Afghan village to allow the country’s special police to practice search operations but the roof and walls began “melting” away in the rain four months after it was completed, said the report by John Sopko, Washington’s special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction (SIGAR).

.............

For the police training center in eastern Wardak province, American officials at Forward Operating Base Shank awarded the $456,669 contract to the firm in May 2012. And the company was paid in full once the buildings were completed in October of the same year.

The center “was not constructed according to contract requirements, and our analysis showed that, as a result, water penetration caused its walls to begin disintegrating within 4 months of when the US government accepted the project . . .,” the SIGAR report said.

.............

The bricks “were made mostly of sand with little clay content and that the lack of adequate clay material caused the bricks to fail when water penetration occurred,” it said.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/01/an-afghan-training-base-that-melted-in-the-rain-us-wasted-billions-on-botched-projects-watchdog/

[corkhead]

1. Someone left the base out in the rain

...but it took so long to make it

[MrScorpio]

2. They'll never have that cost-plus contract again.

Oh noooo!

[daleanime]

6. Actually, I would bet that they will....

[FSogol]

4. Duzy!

...but it cost so much to make it...

[rock]

8. You're a hard man/woman to take seriously

It may be that sig line.

[corkhead]

10. then it's working

[jwirr]

3. Do they say who the contractor was? Couldn't be Helliburton could it? One of those no bid contracts?

[libodem]

7. Sounds like an Afghan company

With a passive aggressive style of sticking to the Occupying Forces.

I don't blame them. Our foreign misadventures must really be pissing off the general population.

If it was Halliburton then I'd be furious and yet unsurprised.

[jwirr]

21. Agreed.

[SammyWinstonJack]

5. Make Darth Cheney reimburse us for it.

Bet it was his former company that cleaned up $$$$$ from the build.

[PeoViejo]

9. Halliburton would get the contracts

and subcontract them out to the locals for a small fraction of what they were paid.

[Bad Granny]

11. "...wasted billions..." This money was not "wasted" in the sense of being purposely misspent. The

MIC parasites made their billions - that is ALL that matters.

Efficiency and productivity and even success are not factors when it comes to calculating corporate profits in war and destruction.

It ALL is gravy for them.

[ND-Dem]

16. +100. they're just traitors & parasites.

[calimary]

24. Welcome to DU, Bad Granny!

Glad you're here! I think that's spot on - "purposely misspent." Why not pad when you know you're gonna get away with it? When you have friends and cohorts in the highest of places and you expect to slide right on through along with them, why wouldn't you expect to get away with it? Get the big-ass contract. Do the work on the cheap. Pocket what you "saved." Then get outta Dodge.

We have to ask - WHY this keeps happening, and how to stop it once and for all.

However, knowing the foibles of human nature, I have my doubts that the "how to stop it" part is even a semi-achievable goal.

[onethatcares]

12. BUT

how many jobs did it create? You don't want to punish the job creators you know.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

13. Bricks of sand melting away is a pretty good metaphor for our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And, Libya for that matter.

[gordianot]

14. I like that think, you are on to something.

[alcina]

15. Beautifully said. <eom>

[Octafish]

17. ''Castles made of sand fall in the sea, eventually." - James Marshall Hendrix

[winstars]

19. First thing I thought of, nice one!!! nt

[Fumesucker]

20. Someone left the base out in the rain

[Octafish]

22. What was that recipe again?

http://www.thenation.com/blog/36661/general-petraeuss-link-troubling-suicide-iraq-ted-westhusing-story

[Spitfire of ATJ]

18. Where have I heard "bricks without straw" before?

Seems that guy said, "Let my people go." too.

[pansypoo53219]

23. money pit/quicksand. this was profiteering for over a decade + no harry truman.