Workers at a generator in Baghdad in 2007. Electricity output is now only slightly higher than it was before the war. (Michael Kamber for The New York Times)From The International Herald Tribune:
BAGHDAD: An unpublished, 513-page federal history of the U.S.-led reconstruction of Iraq depicts an effort crippled before the invasion by Pentagon planners who were hostile to the idea of rebuilding a foreign country, and then molded into a $100 billion failure by bureaucratic turf wars, spiraling violence and ignorance of the basic elements of Iraqi society and infrastructure.
"Hard Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience," the first official account of its kind, is circulating in draft form here and in Washington among a tight circle of technical reviewers, policy experts and senior officials. It also concludes that when the reconstruction began to lag - particularly in the critical area of rebuilding the Iraqi police and army - the Pentagon simply put out inflated measures of progress to cover up the failures.
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My Comment: Corruption has been very much the way of life in Iraq (both past and present) .... but the fact that a number of projects have been successfully accomplished or administered adequately .... the oil industry comes to mind .... gives reason for some hope in the future.
The report properly acknowledges that the security situation has not been the best for the past few years (thereby affecting all levels of development), and that the culture of Arab bureaucracy with all of its inefficiencies have now embedded itself into Iraqi life.
Still .... there are positive signs. The security situation is improving, and there is a concerted determination among many Iraqis to have a better life. The fact that many now want to forget the tyranny and wars of Saddam Hussein and the American occupation of the country is also helping to change the culture and environment of the country.
But the key for Iraq is to still have competent managers and auditors that are honest and who can spot any short coming in any reconstruction project. In addition .... openness will be more important in a new Iraq than what has traditionally been the case. Thieves and incompetant staff always prefer secrecy and closed doors to conduct their deeds .... deny them this environment will help to improve the Iraq situation substantially.