U.S. Troops Kill 3 Police (among others), but be positive!

Good morning:

U.S. troops killed three Iraqi policemen in a shooting
likely to fuel anti-American anger. Underscoring the nervousness of
American soldiers, U.S troops opened fire on a police patrol south of
the oil-rich city of Kirkuk overnight, killing three policemen and
wounding two, said police Lieutenant Salam Zanganeh at Kirkuk Hospital.
He told Reuters the troops apparently mistook the policemen for bandits
in an area where antiquities smugglers are active. There was no
immediate comment from the U.S. military. Such incidents have spread
anti-American anger. Iraqis often complain that U.S. forces are too
aggressive on patrols and searches and are quick to pull the trigger.
Suicide bombers have staged several attacks on Iraqi police to punish
them for working with American soldiers, who hope to hand over security
to the Iraqis. Some 116 Iraqi policemen and security forces have been
killed since May 1. Police have frequently complained that U.S. troops
refuse to give them more weapons or provide protection. Saddam's arrest
has failed to ease violence in the country he once ruled with an iron
fist. Some 50 Iraqis, half of them policemen, and one U.S. soldier have
been killed since. Score settling is also claiming lives in postwar
Iraq. Gunmen in Najaf killed an eight-year-old boy and wounded his
mother on Saturday. In a separate shooting in the same southern Iraqi
city, gunmen also killed a Baath Party official. Dhamya Abbas, a
teacher said by residents to be a senior Baath Party official in Najaf
during the crushing of a 1991 Shi'ite uprising after the Gulf War over
Kuwait, was walking to school with her son when the gunmen opened fire
on them, killing him and wounding her. "I was going to school and then
I saw two people on a motorcycle shoot me with Kalashnikovs. One bullet
hit my stomach and the other one in my leg," she told Reuters from her
hospital bed. "I left the Baath Party five years ago."

I know, I know. I'm focusing too much on the negative. It's not all bad in Iraq! What about all the schools we've rebuilt?

On its corporate Web site, under a page titled "A Fresh
Start for Iraqi School Children," Bechtel Group showcases sparkling new
classrooms filled with happy, young Iraqi students.
But the reality is far different, according to Army investigators.
"In almost every case, the paint jobs were done in a hurry, causing
more damage to the appearance of the school than in terms of providing
a finish that will protect the structure," a recent Army investigation
into Bechtel's work found. "In one case, the paint job actually damaged
critical lab equipment, making it unusable."
Bechtel is one of the biggest corporate winners of U.S. contracts to
rebuild Iraq. Before the war ended, it received a $680 million contract
to fix Iraq's electrical grids, water ports and more than 1,200
schools. In October, it won an additional $350 million contract to
continue the electrical work.
According to Iraqi education officials, Bechtel budgeted about $20,000
per school for repairs. That budget may not seem like much compared to
U.S. rates, but laborers here work for $2 to $7 a day. Bechtel
subcontracted out the work to Iraqis for an undisclosed amount.
During repairs, "reports started coming in about poor quality," said
422nd Civil Affairs Battalion Maj. Linda Scharf, who was responsible
for the schools in question, and who started fielding calls from
concerned teachers and headmasters. "So I asked one of my teams to go
verify the rumors," Scharf said. "They took their digital camera, and
the reality turned out to be worse than the rumors."
What they found: The subcontractors Bechtel hired left paint everywhere
- on the floors, on desks, all over windows. The classrooms were
filthy, the school's desks and chairs were thrown out into the
playground and left, broken. Windows were left damaged, and bathrooms
that were reportedly fixed were left in broken, unsanitary condition.
"Would you allow your child to use that bathroom? I wouldn't," Scharf
said, pointing to a photograph of a stained, broken hole in a dirty,
tiled stall.
Iraqi Education Ministry city planner Israa Mohammed had received
complaints from the schools, too, and tried to get Bechtel officials to
address them before classes started, she said. But Bechtel officials
would not attend regular education ministry meetings, or answer her
questions, she said.
"Because it is an American company, they didn't allow anyone to control
them," she said.
For her part, Mohammed doesn't know what Bechtel spent the money on.
"When we see the work, it's not like that (expensive renovations) -
it's just very simple repairs," Mohammed said.
For the soldiers who've been here since the war trying to build trust
with the Iraqis, the work was insulting.
"Right now we are looking at a company who is representing the United
States, doing poor work in Iraq and allowed to get away with it,"
Scharf said. "You see the kind of work we're leaving behind, and then
of course the question comes up: Who is going to come back and fix all
this?"
In response to the complaints, the Army looked into 20 of Bechtel's
schools. In the Oct. 11 memo, it found that nine schools were left in
"poor" condition, with no electricity or bathrooms at the start of the
school year. Five were rated "fair" but still had hazardous
construction material and needed minor repairs. Four were deemed
"good," and two "outstanding," the report found.
On the "poor"-quality schools, the Army recommended that Bechtel
immediately work with school officials to see what needs to be done. If
repairs can't be made quickly in the worst-off schools, the Army
recommended using U.S. funds "to ensure at least functioning bathroom
facilities and running water."

Not only did we award Bechtel (a company with ties to Donald Rumsfeld,
George Schultz, and Caspar Weinberger) over 1 Billion dollars on a
no-bid contract, now we're going to have to foot the clean-up bill?
This is ludicrous. Bechtel overbid the contract and then paid Iraqi
subcontractors $7 a day to do the work. Now it turns out they did a
crappy job and US funds are going to be appropriated to pay Bechtel to
fix their shoddy work.
Outrageous. I work for a contracting company, and if we screw up on a
job we work for free until we've fixed our mistakes. In contrast, this was Bechtel's response to being accused of doing such a shitty job:

Bechtel said the repairs took place when school was not in
session, and that "faulty repairs" did not become evident until school
were in session. Scripps Howard New Service reports that when informed
of Bechtel's response to the Army's report, 422nd Civil Affairs
Battalion Maj. Linda Scharf, who is responsible for the schools in
question, "simply laughed out loud."

Posted by flow Frazao on December 20, 2003 at 11:13 AM | Permalink