26 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Veteran Democratic congressman Tom Lantos (news, bio, voting record) on Tuesday took aim at the Bush administration for "serious misconduct" in its "abysmal" attempt to rebuild violence-shattered Iraq.
Lantos, chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs committee, accused top US officials of wallowing in the "mud of incompetence" and said they were guilty of "stunning mismanagement" in post-war Iraq.
He used a 6.8 million dollar modernization of a maternity hospital in the Iraqi city of Arbil as a symbol of US failures in Iraq following the 2003 invasion.
Hospital drains were now backed up, spewing overflow water throughout the hospital, and water was contaminated by used syringes, drug vials, and bandages, he said.
"This is just one of scores of projects among many so-called 'completed' reconstruction projects in Iraq that are now literally crumbling," said Lantos, at a hearing featuring US inspector general for Iraq reconstruction Stuart Bowen.
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