Two Cities, Same Story

This is not a picture of New Orleans. Or a city anywhere near the Mississippi. In fact this is Baghdad. And the United States government has not only destroyed that city with bombs and insufficient security, we have botched even the most basic construction jobs.

Two stories hit the papers today and they cannot be unrelated, nor should they be taken lightly. The first story in today's Washington Post declares that the United States squandered or never collected nearly one billion dollars in foreign aid. Here is just a taste of the not surprising but outrageous story:

Allies offered $854 million in cash and in oil that was to be sold for cash. But only $40 million has been used so far for disaster victims or reconstruction, according to U.S. officials and contractors. Most of the aid went uncollected, including $400 million worth of oil. Some offers were withdrawn or redirected to private groups such as the Red Cross. The rest has been delayed by red tape and bureaucratic limits on how it can be spent.

In addition, valuable supplies and services -- such as cellphone systems, medicine and cruise ships -- were delayed or declined because the government could not handle them. In some cases, supplies were wasted.

The struggle to apply foreign aid in the aftermath of the hurricane, which has cost U.S. taxpayers more than $125 billion so far, is another reminder of the federal government's difficulty leading the recovery. Reports of government waste and delays or denials of assistance have surfaced repeatedly since hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck in 2005.

The second story from today's New York Times concerns Iraq reconstruction. If you can call it that. A group of inspectors conducting federal oversight (shocking) found that 7 of 8 projects they assessed, projects our government had declared "successes", were no longer functioning for a variety of reasons. The first paragraph tells the story:

In a troubling sign for the American-financed rebuilding program in Iraq, inspectors for a federal oversight agency have found that in a sampling of eight projects that the United States had declared successes, seven were no longer operating as designed because of plumbing and electrical failures, lack of proper maintenance, apparent looting and expensive equipment that lay idle.

Heckuva job, fellas.