[NYTr] Iraqi Police Academy Remains Largely Unusable

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

The New York Times - Nov 6, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/06/world/middleeast/06police.html


Iraqi Police Academy Remains Largely Unusable

By James Glanz

Baghdad  - More than a year after the Parsons Corporation, the American
contracting giant, promised Congress that it would fix the disastrous
plumbing and shoddy construction in barracks the company built at the
Baghdad police academy, the ceilings are still stained with excrement,
parts of the structures are crumbling and sections of the buildings are
unusable because the toilets are filthy and nonfunctioning.

The project, where United States inspectors found giant cracks snaking
through newly built walls and human waste dripping from ceilings,
became one of the most visible examples of a $45 billion American
reconstruction program that is widely seen as a failure.

The project also became an argument for the value of government
oversight when, in response to the inspectors' findings, a Parsons
executive told Congress in September 2006 that the company would fix
the problems at no cost to the United States. Parsons now says that it
did so, directing an Iraqi subcontractor to correct deficiencies at no
additional charge.

But Iraqi police recruits, instructors and officers at the Parsons-built
barracks and classrooms on Sunday complained bitterly about the
buildings' condition, calling the contractor negligent and asking why
the problems had not yet been fixed. The structures were refurbished or
built from scratch at an overall cost of $72 million in American
taxpayer money.

Recruits in some of the buildings had recently been ordered not to use
any of the toilets on the upper floors because the urine and fecal
matter consistently leaked onto the lower floors, several American
officials at the academy said.

An American officer affiliated with a major new project to fix the
problems said he shared the unhappiness of many of the Iraqis.

"What I've seen here disgusts me as a taxpayer," said the officer, who
spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to
speak publicly about the project. "When it's for something good, I
don't mind flipping the dime, but this money just went from my pocket
to a contractor."

The Iraqis at the compound were, if anything, even more upset. "They
used bad pipes for the sewage system," said an officer who gave his
name as Lt. Selah, a maintenance adviser, as he pointed through a
ruptured drop-ceiling that had been ruined by waste leaking from faulty
pipes above it.

The concrete used in the construction was substandard and is already
collapsing in places because of the constant rain of sewage, Lieutenant
Selah said, barely able to contain his anger. Those dangers had forced
engineers to turn off all the water in the building, he said.

"The students are stinking because there is no water," Lieutenant Selah
added.

A company spokeswoman, Erin Kuhlman, said that Parsons, which is based
in Pasadena, Calif., had strictly abided by the terms of the contract
it had received from the United States Army Corps of Engineers to do
the work at the academy.

"Parsons completed its work at the Baghdad Police College in the spring
of 2006," Ms. Kuhlman said, adding that the Army Corps accepted the
work as completed at about the same time.

By July 2006, the company had been notified of problems with the
plumbing. Parsons put the Army Corps, in effect the company's client,
in touch with the Iraqi subcontractors who actually carried out the
construction, so that the Iraqis could fulfill their warranty to
redress shortcomings in the work, Ms. Kuhlman said.

"After we were notified by our customer of the issues, our customer
worked directly with the subcontractor on the warranty work and Parsons
has not been asked to provide any additional assistance on this project
or with the warranty work," Ms. Kuhlman said.

But dire problems with the project were discovered in inspections in
August and September 2006 by the Office of the Special Inspector
General for Iraq Reconstruction, an independent agency led by Stuart W.
Bowen Jr. His report on the inspections severely criticized not only
Parsons but also the Army Corps for oversight that the report said was
so weak as to be almost nonexistent in some respects.

Mr. Bowen's report also stated that inspectors had found "indications of
potential fraud" in the project and had referred the case to its
investigative division.

The spokesman, Col. Rivers Johnson, said the Parsons contract was
terminated in May 2006. Asked about the problems with the construction,
Colonel Johnson said in an e-mail message, "Due to ongoing legal
issues, it would be inappropriate to discuss this issue in detail."

Skip to next paragraph Reach of War Go to Complete Coverage ; On Sept.
28, 2006, as the inspector general's report was released, Earnest O.
Robbins II, a senior vice president at Parsons, testified before the
House Government Reform Committee that the company would fix the
problems at no extra charge. "We are repairing it at no cost to the
government," Mr. Robbins said in response to questions by
Representative Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland.

But on Sunday, the American officer affiliated with the new project to
repair the problems described an elaborate and costly effort to tear
out and replace the plumbing on entire floors. The problems were so
severe, the officer said, that the military had also been obliged to
build new latrines outside and demolish some structures entirely and
start over.

"These buildings are all Parsons-built," said the officer. "The piping
is bad. It really is. To be honest with you, it's raw sewage, raw fecal
matter coming out of the walls."

Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, the chairman of the
Government Reform Committee, said in a statement that there was no
excuse for the state of the academy.

"Over a year has passed with virtually no progress fixing the abysmal
conditions at the Baghdad police academy," Mr. Waxman said.

"The police academy was supposed to be a showcase project, but it now
epitomizes wasteful spending and incompetent oversight," he said. "The
administration said this mess would be cleaned up, but once again, the
money was squandered and no one was held accountable."

At the academy, Sgt. Oday Chaloo Hamid said that because of breakdowns,
the broad, three-story barracks he lived in depended on just four
toilets. He added that several American commissions had come through to
study the problems, but that little had been done.

"They just give promises," Sergeant Hamid said.

Mudhafar Fadhil contributed reporting.