More than a year after the Parsons Corporation, the American contracting giant, promised Congress that it would fix the disastrous plumbing and shoddy construction in barracks the company built at the Baghdad police academy, the ceilings are still stained with excrement, parts of the structures are crumbling and sections of the buildings are unusable because the toilets are filthy and nonfunctioning.
The project, where United States inspectors found giant cracks snaking through newly built walls and human waste dripping from ceilings, became one of the most visible examples of a $45 billion American reconstruction program that is widely seen as a failure.
The project also became an argument for the value of government oversight when, in response to the inspectors’ findings, a Parsons executive told Congress in September 2006 that the company would fix the problems at no cost to the United States. Parsons now says that it did so, directing an Iraqi subcontractor to correct deficiencies at no additional charge.
But Iraqi police recruits, instructors and officers at the Parsons-built barracks and classrooms on Sunday complained bitterly about the buildings’ condition, calling the contractor negligent and asking why the problems had not yet been fixed. The structures were refurbished or built from scratch at an overall cost of $72 million in American taxpayer money.
Recruits in some of the buildings had recently been ordered not to use any of the toilets on the upper floors because the urine and fecal matter consistently leaked onto the lower floors, several American officials at the academy said.
An American officer affiliated with a major new project to fix the problems said he shared the unhappiness of many of the Iraqis.
“What I’ve seen here disgusts me as a taxpayer,” said the officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the project. “When it’s for something good, I don’t mind flipping the dime, but this money just went from my pocket to a contractor.”
$72 billion. That's nearly TWICE the amount that George W. Bush said this country couldn't afford for providing health coverage to American children. We can't afford health coverage for American kids, but we can afford to shovel $72 billion of taxpayer cash into the pockets of a company like Parsons, which New Jersey residents have known for years can't find its own ass to wipe itself.
One would hope that once this bunch of criminals is gone from the scene (assuming they plan to leave, which will become far more doubtful if the Daniel Levin story by some miracle gains any traction) this race to privatize military activities will end. Meanwhile, it would help if boondoggles like this received the same amount of media coverage, hammering home the point if necessary, as cleavages, haircuts, and beefcake photos of presidential candidates.
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