'Many promised projects in Iraq will be uncompleted'
Large numbers of projects that were promised by the American-financed reconstruction programme in Iraq will not be completed, it emerged today.
The New York Times said a report into the scheme had concluded that just 49 of the 136 projects pledged to improve water and sanitation would be finished, while only around 300 projects to provide electricity would be completed, out of 425 planned.
Unforeseen security costs, haphazard planning and shifting priorities, were to blame, the paper said.
Planners did not take into account the huge administrative costs that would be run up.
They also largely failed to realise that the United States would have to spend money on keeping things like sewage treatment plants running once they had been built
The report, by the office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, said billions of dollars were also moved from reconstruction to pay for training Iraqi police and guarding Iraq’s borders.
Although the inspector general is overseeing the whole $25bn (€20.6m) rebuilding effort, the latest report focuses on projects financed by $18.4bn (€15.2bn) appropriated by Congress for the programme in 2004.
