U.S. finds major flaws in another Iraqi construction project

The American-financed rebuilding of an Iraqi police headquarters that was meant to show a new approach to reconstruction has instead turned out to be rife with shoddy construction and is exposing security forces to unnecessary risk, a federal oversight agency said yesterday.

The criticism has come in the midst of an intensive American push to train and equip a police force capable of restoring order to Iraq’s increasingly violent streets.

The headquarters project, in the ethnically divided and volatile northern city of Mosul, is the second police-related contract to face harsh criticism recently. Two weeks ago, the same oversight agency told Congress of grotesque plumbing failures and other problems at a $72 million police college in Baghdad.

In the earlier project, most of the criticism was directed at Parsons, the American contractor hired by the United States Army Corps of Engineers to carry out the work with the help of Iraqi subcontractors. But this time, in a step the Army Corps has said will eliminate some of the construction problems, the work was contracted directly to a local Iraqi company.

But the Mosul police headquarters project, a $988,000 contract that was much smaller and presumably simpler than the earlier one, suffered some of the same troubles, according to a report released yesterday by the agency, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction.

Brian M. Flynn, the assistant inspector general for inspections at the oversight agency, said there had been no plans to look into the headquarters, called One West, until an inspection team happened to be in Mosul and was approached by the Iraqi police.

The police “were so upset with the quality of construction that they asked us to inspect it while we were there,” Mr. Flynn said.

Problems with the construction were not hard to find, the agency’s report said. One part of the contract called for the construction of 10 showers, 12 toilets, 10 urinals, 10 sinks and a changing room at One West. Instead, just one shower and one toilet had been built, and there was no changing room. A tree in the spot where the construction took place was allowed to remain standing, and its trunk was cemented into the building’s structure.

Numerous other plumbing and construction shortcomings turned up, an electrical generator was delivered but not installed and instead of installing fans in the guard houses, as called for in the contract, workers installed extra windows, leaving the guards exposed in a city where police stations have frequently been attacked.

Read the rest at the NY Times

Related Link:
Parsons Corp. under fire for Iraq work

Related Link:
Inspector General: much reconstruction work sub-standard

Related Link:
Audit: Iraq rebuilding far behind goals

Related Link:
Heralded Iraq police academy building a 'disaster'

Related Link:
Ties to GOP Trumped Know-How Among Staff Sent to Rebuild Iraq