Hard Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience
Source: Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction

Hard Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience appears virtually upon the five-year anniversary of my appointment as Inspector General in Iraq. Shortly after that appointment, I met with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to whom I reported, to discuss the mission. His first words were: “Why did you take this job? It is an impossible task.” I began to understand why he offered so startling a “welcome” during the following week, when I made my first trip to Iraq to begin setting up oversight of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), then in charge of Iraq’s reconstruction. My office in the Republican Palace, which housed the CPA—and would later house the U.S. Embassy—was adjacent to the CPA Comptroller’s. What I saw was troubling: large amounts of cash moving quickly out the door. Later that same day, walking the halls of the palace, I overheard someone say: “We can’t do that anymore. There is a new inspector general here.”

These red flags were the first signs of how challenging executing oversight in Iraq would be. But it has not been impossible, chiefly because of the professional, productive, and courageous conduct of the many auditors, inspectors, and investigators who have worked diligently to fulfill the mission of the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR). SIGIR’s oversight jurisdiction covers about $50 billion in U.S. funds appropriated by the Congress for Iraq—the largest relief and reconstruction effort for one country in U.S. history. This sea of taxpayer dollars flowed to a wide spectrum of initiatives, ranging from training Iraq’s army and police to building large electrical, oil, and water projects; from supporting democracy-building efforts to strengthening budget execution by provincial councils; and from funding rule-of-law reforms to ensuring that the Iraqi government sustains what the U.S. program provided. Some of these initiatives succeeded, but, as this report documents, many did not.

Hard Lessons reviews the Iraq reconstruction experience from mid-2002 through the fall of 2008. Like SIGIR’s previous lessons learned reports, this study is not an audit. Rather, it arises from our congressional mandate to provide “advice and recommendations on policies to promote economy, efficiency, and effectiveness” in programs created for Iraq’s relief and reconstruction.”

+ High resolution cover (PDF; 421 KB)
+ Full Report (PDF; 2.1 MB)
+ End notes (PDF; 581 KB)

This entry was posted on Monday, February 2nd, 2009 at 3:37 pm and is filed under Business and economics, Crime, Documents in the news, Ethics, Government and politics, Middle East. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.