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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/09/22/MN206196.DTL

Iraqi leaders to tell Congress of wasteful spending

Patrick E. Tyler, New York Times Monday, September 22, 2003

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Baghdad -- In a 6,000-mile end run around American and British occupation authorities, leaders from the Iraqi Governing Council say they will go to Congress this week to argue that U.S. taxpayers can save billions of dollars on Iraq's reconstruction by granting sovereignty more rapidly to the council, the 25-member interim government here.

In interviews, the Iraqi leaders said they planned to tell Congress about how the staff of Paul Bremer, the American occupation administrator, sends its laundry to Kuwait, how it costs $20,000 a day to feed the Americans at Al Rashid Hotel in Baghdad, how American contractors charge large premiums for working in Iraq and how, across the board, the overhead from supporting and protecting the large American and British presence here is less efficient than granting direct aid to Iraqi ministries that operate at a fraction of the cost.

"The Americans are spending money here to secure themselves at a rate that is two to three times what they are spending to secure the Iraqi people," said Ahmad al-Barak, a human rights lawyer and a member of the Governing Council. "It would be better for us if we would be in charge of how to spend this money,

and, of course, they could monitor how it is spent."

He estimated that in some cases the savings could be a factor of 10. "Where they spend $1 billion, we would spend $100 million," he said.

President Bush has asked Congress for $87 billion to finance military and reconstruction operations in Iraq and Afghanistan in the coming year. Of that amount $20.3 billion is dedicated to Iraq's reconstruction.

The Governing Council's maneuver to bypass Bremer, who has flown back to Washington for a round of appearances this week, seemed bound to irritate and embarrass him. Council members said Bremer had not been told in advance of the council's plans to send representatives to Washington.

Bremer has said the council is not yet ready to take on more governing responsibilities. He was unavailable for comment Sunday night, but his spokesman here, Nabeel Khoury, said Bremer would be answering questions in Washington "about what we have been doing with the money we have" and would be explaining how the occupation authority would spend the $20.3 billion the White House has requested.

The council's end run reflects a political struggle between occupiers and the occupied that Iraqi officials say is inevitable and, so far, has not undermined the otherwise close working relationship that the council maintains with Bremer and his staff.

But the goodwill is wearing thin as the interim Iraqi leaders, most of them from the opposition groups that helped persuade the Bush administration to topple Saddam Hussein, become increasingly frustrated with the deteriorating security in the country and the impatient expectations of Iraqis to see some fruits of what the United States calls their liberation.

"To proceed, we need a new political consensus among the United States, the coalition and the Governing Council itself," said Iyad Alawi, a council member.

For that reason, he said, the delegation was sent to Washington to seek support in Congress for a more rapid transfer of sovereignty, budget resources and security responsibilities to Iraqis.

On Sunday, French President Jacques Chirac called for the immediate transfer of sovereignty in Iraq to the Iraqi people and indicated that France would approve only a new U.N. resolution that recognized this need.

In an interview Sunday with Fox News, Bush continued to insist on an orderly transfer of authority to the Iraqis rather than the quick action demanded by France.

He also said Sunday he was not sure the United States would have to yield a significantly larger role to the United Nations to make way for a new resolution on Iraq.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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As May was drawing to a close, his manager told him that someone from the CPA wanted the company to estimate the building costs of replacing the New Diyala Bridge on the South East end of Baghdad. He got his team together, they went out and assessed the damage, decided it wasn?t too extensive, but it would be costly. They did the necessary tests and analyses (mumblings about soil composition and water depth, expansion joints and girders) and came up with a number they tentatively put forward- $300,000. This included new plans and designs, raw materials (quite cheap in Iraq), labor, contractors, travel expenses, etc.
Let?s pretend my cousin is a dolt. Let?s pretend he hasn?t been working with bridges for over 17 years. Let?s pretend he didn?t work on replacing at least 20 of the 133 bridges damaged during the first Gulf War. Let?s pretend he?s wrong and the cost of rebuilding this bridge is four times the number they estimated- let?s pretend it will actually cost $1,200,000. Let?s just use our imagination.
A week later, the New Diyala Bridge contract was given to an American company. This particular company estimated the cost of rebuilding the bridge would be around- brace yourselves- $50,000,000 !!

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