A heavy price for the mismanagement of the reconstruction of Iraq

Date: Saturday 15/09/2012 09:50 am



 translation Khaliq Ali
if we say that the United States has entered into problems when trying to rebuild Iraq after it invaded in 2003, that is only a small part of the issue, as they suffered a lot of difficulties due to its failure full in careful planning for postwar Iraq . After the fall of Saddam's government engaged the United States in more than issues such as the complete collapse of the Iraqi administration and the looting and escalating violence. Americans reached to establish a lot of organizations, one after the other was supposed to run all reconstruction work, but they were not able as it seems to overcome those difficulties.


There were a lot of arrangements and chain of command and conflicting goals and changing requirements, and there was a lack of qualified staff appropriate in addition to weak management practices and a lot of twisting and turning and abuses on the costs and lack of control. For all these reasons failed Americans in efforts to heal Iraq miserably.

The United States always face problems related to the establishment of an administrative system coordinator for the rebuilding of Iraq, and has established various offices to deal with this task, but those offices have created more problems than they created solutions. For example, established the Coalition Provisional Authority Program Management Office and the Office of contracting activities, and at the same time, the U.S. Agency for International Development and claimed the army runs its independent reconstruction. After the CPA stopped working in 2004 founded the White House Office of the reconstruction and administration of Iraq Project and Contracting Office, but this did not end the work of international development agency. Adding in the difficulties the lack of official and one for each of these offices. For example, the Office of the reconstruction and administration of Iraq is responsible before the State Department, while the PCO was under the command of the Pentagon. Each time founded the Organization for what was supposed to be responsible for the control of the reconstruction projects, but what was happening is to add more bureaucracy and business career at the time did not solve the problem of conflicting chain of command.

None of these offices qualified staff performs its duties. In February 2004, took Gen. (Stephen C.) prime contracting activities, but what he found is lacking body and filled with hundreds of staff contracts. Was supposed to have a 69 employees but in fact did not have more than a third of that number, and many of his employees were not qualified to work with companies which means that his office was not able to keep up with work requirements, with the result tried to CNN reorganization Authority and Employment Application staffed with the right people for the job but was unable to overcome the obstacles. Any model contract was passing through a large number of steps led to the aggravation of the cost because the process with many of the offices, most of which did not know the requirements of the contracts or Bjaddaolha and budget and schedule the completion of the work required, and all these offices do not have the qualified staff, which means it lacks people who can to negotiate with the contractors. At the same time there was a large number of instructions in order to supervise the work. Many companies remained without a job waiting for orders under which they operate, while still receiving financial receivables. From 2004 - 2005, for example, five large companies contracted to the United States lists valued at $ 62.1 million for the costs of pregnancy while the lists provided amounted to $ 26.6 million for the actual work. Ended up in the United States to be founded on top of each other bureaucracies, each responsible to a different person with more rules and orders with the lack of a sufficient number of people who implement them, adding to the costs.

The nature of a lot of other contracts created confusion. The United States has tended to added cost contracts for companies operating in the field of reconstruction, meaning that the government will pay expenses, whether the project was terminated or not, which increased costs and pressure from Baghdad and Washington in order to resolve the issue. The result was quick contracting process with different types of transactions, but many details remained without solutions with companies. The lack of selections in turn led to the loss and to larger lists. Every time the United States is trying to solve a problem, it creates a new problem. I tried to America to serve and reorganize their efforts to rebuild Iraq several times over the years, and each time establish new offices and impose new regulations, which added to the difficulties over creating solutions. Most important of all, that the United States did not realize the shortcomings of institutional effort, any off there was no one person is responsible for everything. Instead, the Pentagon has attempted and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to keep their operations and work together, but often got a collision between them and the result was a loss of more time and money. Many Iraqis believe that the rich and powerful countries like the United States can rebuild Iraq quickly and efficiently, but what they do not know is that Americans founded a system where a lot of bugs proved his incompetence to the task.

: ideas for Iraq