BAGHDAD, July 28, 2008
Empty Iraq Prison A "Monument" To Waste
Shoddy, Unusable $40M Facility Blasted In Inspector General's Report: "Demolition Is The Only Option"
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Inspectors found areas of severe concrete segregation and honeycombing in the $40 million, unfinished facility. (USACE/SIGIR)
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The Khan Bani Saad Correctional Facility, about 12 miles northeast of Baghdad. Local officials say shoddy construction means the unusable prison "can collapse at any time." (AP Photo/SIGIR)
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Inspectors said columns were dangerously constructed. They could not tell if there was proper support. (USACE/SIGIR)
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They also found poor quality brick workmanship. (USACE/SIGIR)
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Interactive Iraq: 5 Years At War Five years after the U.S.-led invasion, the war wears on.
It holds something else: a chronicle of U.S. government waste, misguided planning and construction shortcuts costing $40 million and stretching back to the American overseers who replaced Saddam Hussein.
"It's a bit of a monument in the desert right now because it's not going to be used as a prison," said Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, whose office plans to release a report Monday detailing the litany of problems at the vacant detention center in Khan Bani Saad.
The pages also add another narrative to the wider probes into the billions lost so far on scrubbed or substandard projects in Iraq and one of the main contractors accused of failing to deliver, the Parsons construction group of Pasadena, California.
"This is $40 million invested in a project with very little return," Bowen told The Associated Press in Washington. "A couple of buildings are useful. Other than that, it's a failure."
In the pecking order of corruption in Iraq, the dead-end prison project at Khan Bani Saad is nowhere near the biggest or most tangled.
Bowen estimated up to 20 percent "waste" - or more than $4 billion - from the $21 billion spent so far in the U.S.-bankrolled Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund. It's just one piece of a recovery effort that swelled beyond $112 billion in U.S., Iraqi and international contributions.
But the empty prison compound - in the shadows of more than two dozen watchtowers now dotted by birds' nests - is an open sore for both American watchdogs and local Iraqi politicians who had counted on the prison as an economic boost.
The head of the municipal council in Khan Bani Saad, Sayyed Rasoul al-Husseini, called it "a big monster that's swallowed money and hopes" - including those for more than 1,200 new jobs.
He sometimes drives out to the site, near groves of date palms and a former Saddam-era military training camp about 12 miles northeast of Baghdad and just over the border in the tense Diyala Province.
Al-Husseini says he walks the perimeter and wonders what can be salvaged. A housing development is not possible, he said. Many concrete walls lack proper iron reinforcements and "can collapse at any time," he said. Birds and small animals have found homes in the towers and crannies.
"But some of the cell blocks are good," he suggested. "So maybe it can become a factory. I don't know. It's depressing."
The idea for the modern-style prison began with the Coalition Provisional Authority running Iraq after Saddam's fall.
On behalf of the authority, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers awarded a $40 million contract in March 2004 to global construction and engineering firm Parsons to design and build a 1,800-inmate lockup to include educational and vocational facilities. Work was set to begin May 2004 and finish November 2005.
Nothing went right from the start, the report says.
The Sunni insurgency was catching fire. The U.S. was under pressure to improve prison conditions following the abuses exposed at Abu Ghraib.
Washington's focus shifted quickly from rebuilding to just holding its ground. The prison project got started six months late and continued to fall behind - until Parsons asked to push the completion date to late 2008, the report said.
The U.S. government pulled the plug in June 2006, citing "continued schedule slips and ... massive cost overruns." But they hadn't abandoned the hope of finishing the project - awarding three more contracts to other companies in a doomed effort.
The waste was made more egregious by the fact that Diyala badly needs more prisons to handle a growing inmate population. Bowen's team was told that about 600 inmates are crowded into an existing Diyala prison designed for 250 inmates and that the overcrowding and health conditions are so grave that several inmates have died, the report says.
(USACE/SIGIR)
The problem at Khan Bani Saad is only one example of the millions of dollars auditors found were wasted on construction projects by Parsons, which left Iraq two years ago.
In a companion report also being released Monday, Bowen said the prison was part of a $900 million Parsons contract to build border posts, courts, police training centers and fire stations. It was one of 12 contracts awarded in 2004 in hopes of restoring Iraq's infrastructure.
Of 53 construction projects in the massive Parson contract, only 18 were completed.
As of this spring, Parsons had been paid $333 million. More than $142 million of that - or almost 43 percent - was for projects that were terminated or canceled.
While the failure to complete some of the work was "understandable given the complex nature and unstable security environment in Iraq, millions of dollars" were likely wasted, the report said.
Bowen said only about 10 U.S. contracting officers and specialists were working on the $900 million contract, whereas 50 or 60 would be assigned to a comparable undertaking in the United States.
In a last wasteful act at Khan Bani Saad, the U.S. government allowed $1.2 million worth of construction supplies to be left unguarded at Khan Bani Saad after work was suspended in June 2007 - fencing, gravel, piping and other items. Most of it is now missing.
U.S. officials turned over control of the semi-finished prison to Iraq's Justice Ministry nearly a year ago. The ministry promptly replied it had no plans to "complete, occupy or provide security" for the facility, the report said.
In the end, Parsons got $31 million and the other contractors got $9 million.
Some parts of the facility are usable, but construction in other parts is so substandard that demolition is the only option, the report said. Inspectors found cracking and crumbling concrete slabs, columns not strong enough to support the structure and incorrect use of reinforcement bars meant to strengthen the concrete.
"Khan Bani Saad is a microcosm of the shortfalls in the reconstruction program," said Bowen.
And the choice of Parsons - in retrospect - was part of a far bigger web of alleged shortcomings by the conglomerate in Iraq.
"This is the worst performing contractor that we have identified" among the seven firms so far studied in Congress-mandated reviews of Iraqi projects, said Bowen.
It was not possible to get advance comment from Parsons. Under the rules for the release of the audit, reporters were not allowed to reveal its details until Monday.
But the report said Parsons had argued that the U.S. government misrepresented the security conditions. Parsons said that its subcontractors faced threats that either shut down or slowed work almost daily. In August 2005, the site manager for one of Parsons' subcontractors was shot to death in his office.
Diyala remains one of the most dangerous places in Iraq. In the past week, U.S. and Iraqi forces have stepped up sweeps against insurgents in one of their last footholds near Baghdad.
But officials of the Army Corps of Engineers - one of the agencies that oversaw the prison construction - countered that Parsons understood conditions in Iraq at the time. They also said Parsons rarely reported security threats, and only recorded seven days when it cited delays due to violence.
Bowen said his agency has done 120 audits on Iraqi projects. "And they tell an episodic story of waste," he said.
For More Information:
The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction: Prison Report
Audit of Parsons Delaware, Inc.
By Associated Press Writers Brian Murphy and Pauline Jelinek
© MMVIII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The secrets of tennis legend 
a prison built by U.S. contractors just north of Bagdad
was not finished?? or usable and at a cost of
$40 million dollars.
Now also mentioned in the articale was the missing
or misuse of $4 Billion out of $21 Billion which is part
of a swelling ( over run costs )of $112 Billion being spent.
Is it that there is no accountability or internal
controller in our government. Or is the people in the contractor''s groups so powerful that they can make trouble makers just disapeer, or is the kickbacks so
far reaching that the government can''t keep up with the corruption in our own governmental ranks
mustb1
It''s a complete and utter waste. It''s unnecessary.
If these contractors were working here in the U.S. building things like these, you better believe the governments (i.e. local, county, state, etc) wouldn''t pay for this obvious and blatant waste of tax-payer''s money. And even worse . . . it ain''t even our infrastructure, so it''s a 100% loss to us.
And careful of callin ghtem names. That might be hurtful and come under the HATE CRIMES and one of the appointed prosecuting attorneys might be forced to prosecute you.
I, for one, do not want a sanctimonious, holy than thou, "GOD fearing" Luddite, leading this country. We have had 8 years of that already.
The Cheney Gang Retirement Community Centre...
Remember this: We paid this $40Million on credit, and guess what? We will be paying intrest on this for the next million years....
Thank you so much Mr. Bush!
Posted by rangerdahl at 11:28 AM : Jul 28, 2008
Stevens of Alaska and the bridge to nowhere does a better job, rangerdull...
With a sign that says:
Wasteful like Their Philosophy
Overpriced like Their Ability
Empty like Their Planning
Paid for by courtesy of the USA public
who traded their children''s future for it.
This was all Bush and Cheney''s plan to liberate Iraq and form a democracy there we can be proud of... Yet BILLIONS of tax payer money is completely unaccounted for...
Why ?
Are these American companies who have been paid well by US taxpayers Patriots ?
Am I worng to question the Patriotism of these corps/comapines that were supposed ot take the responsibility of rebuilding Iraq, and helping our troops etc... ?
How is anyone supposed to feel like a Patriotic citizen when you hear over and over agina about these corporations getting paid billions but not doing the job to the level of satisfaction as exepcted ?
We have been ripped off by our own people our own corporations/companies. There the ones that fund much of the rhetoric an dhave lobbied for there positions but then take it even further and just blatantly rip off our government and ultimately me and you...
Could this situation be anymore embarassing ??? We goto our jobs pay our taxes, and what have we gotten in return ???? A lousy $600 stimulus check that did nothing to offset the greed of Wallstreet and subprime mess, the quadrupling of gasprices over the last 6 years, and the war in Iraq that was based upon half truths and falsfied intelligence reports...
I honestly do not believe that Americans are not angry enough... Are own people are treating us like sheep, and we sit back and wait for an election to get things changed...
- by meanbiker July 28, 2008 1:38 PM EDT
- I would think the contractors would be held accountable for this error.. and should pay to rebuild this prison correctly.. If they are unable to correct their error then they (all members) should not be allowed to work on ANY government contract for the rest of their lives.. nor should their children or grandchildren.. Flippen CEO''s need to be held accountable!
- Reply to this comment
See all 20 CommentsAnd the US should not be footing the bill to build Iraq.. They have the oil.. they have the money.. They should pay.. We supply the man power to police their country until they can get on their feet.. and nothing more..