Washington D.C. – At a hearing held today by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs (HSGAC), U.S. Senator Mark Dayton reproached the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, for the U.S. government’s copious contracting and procurement failures in Iraq. Citing numerous projects, including the reconstruction of hospitals, which have gone awry, Dayton demanded that both the Department of Defense and the contractors be held accountable for fraud and abuse, which have put the health and safety of American troops at risk.

“These failures are so egregious. Hospitals not being built, roofs not being repaired, water leaking in, incubators from the 1970s, lack of fire codes. This is just not one instance. These are repeated, and this puts our troops at great risk,” said Dayton. “Our soldiers who are putting their lives on the line in Iraq bear the brunt.”

Last week, it was reported that the U.S. government dropped a contract with Bechtel, an American construction company, for a project to build a children’s hospital in the city of Basra, after the project fell nearly a year behind schedule and exceeded its expected costs by as much as 150 percent. According to the New York Times article (7/28/06), earlier this year, the Army Corp of Engineers cancelled more than $300 million in contracts held by another construction company, Parsons, to build and repair hospitals in Iraq. And according to a recent report by U.S. government auditors, the rebuilding of a critical 31 – mile pipeline in northern Iraq has fallen more than two years behind schedule. Auditors found that the contractor KBR – a subsidiary of Halliburton – did not perform daily reviews of the project’s progress.

“Reports come out, months, even years have gone by, and corporate entities have not been held to account,” said Dayton “Not only have they not been held to account, they get another source contractor or they go on and contract somewhere else in the Department of Defense. There’s not nearly enough accountability here, and there’s very little consequence. It’s endemic throughout the whole system, and it’s even more apparent in a place like Iraq. This is not only immoral, it should be illegal. It should be prosecuted to the maximum extent possible.”

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