Troops Confront Waste in Iraq Reconstruction - Washington Post, 25 Aug.

Maj. Craig Whiteside's anger grew as he walked through the sprawling school where U.S. military commanders had invested money and hope. Portions of the workshop's ceiling were cracked or curved. The cafeteria floor had a gaping hole and concrete chunks. The auditorium was unfinished, with cracked floors and poorly painted walls peppered with holes.

Whiteside blamed the school director for not monitoring the renovation. The director retorted that the military should have had better oversight. The contract shows the Iraqi contractor was paid $679,000.

The story of the Vo-Tech Iskandariyah Industrial School illustrates the challenges of rebuilding Iraq. It also raises questions about how the military is managing hundreds of millions of dollars to fund such reconstruction, part of the effort to stabilize the country.

Senior officers and commanders insist cases like the Vo-Tech are isolated and are quickly addressed. But in this turbulent patch of Iraq south of Baghdad, ground commanders and civil affairs officers say the system is marked by inefficiency and waste and is vulnerable to corruption. Many Iraqi contractors are slow and unreliable. Some are dishonest. Meanwhile, inexperienced soldiers do their best to scrutinize millions of dollars in contracts and monitor projects they don't fully comprehend ...