Bechtel
Departure Removes
More Illusions
By Dahr Jamail &
Ali al-Fadhily
14 November, 2006
Inter Press Service
BAGHDAD, Nov 9 (IPS) - The decision of the giant engineering
company Bechtel to withdraw from Iraq has left many Iraqis feeling betrayed.
In its departure they see the end of remaining hopes for the reconstruction
of Iraq.
"It is much worse than
in the time of Saddam Hussein," Communist Party member Nayif Jassim
told IPS. "Most Iraqis wish Saddam would be back in power now that
they lived out the hardships of the occupation. The Americans did nothing
but loot our oil and kill our people."
Bechtel, whose board members
have close ties to the Bush administration, announced last week that
it was done with trying to operate in the war-torn country. The company
has received 2.3 billion dollars of Iraqi reconstruction funds and U.S.
taxpayer money, but is leaving without completing most of the tasks
it set out to.
On every level of infrastructure
measurable, the situation in Iraq is worse now than under the rule of
Saddam Hussein. That includes the 12 years of economic sanctions since
the first Gulf War in 1991, a period that former UN humanitarian coordinator
for Iraq Dennis Halliday described as "genocidal" for Iraqis.
The average household in
Iraq now gets two hours of electricity a day. There is 70 percent unemployment,
68 percent of Iraqis have no access to safe drinking water, and only
19 percent have sewage access. Not even oil production has matched pre-invasion
levels.
The security situation is
hellish, with a recent study published in the prestigious British medical
journal Lancet estimating 655,000 excess deaths in Iraq as a result
of the invasion and occupation.
The group Medact recently
said that easily treatable conditions such as diarrhoea and respiratory
illness are causing 70 percent of all child deaths, and that "of
the 180 health clinics the U.S. hoped to build by the end of 2005, only
four have been completed -- and none opened."
A proposed 200 million dollar
project to build 142 primary care centres ran out of cash after building
just 20 clinics, a performance that the World Health Organisation described
as "shocking."
Iraqis are complaining louder
now than under the sanctions. Lack of electricity has led to increasing
demand for gasoline to run generators. And gasoline is among the most
scarce commodities in this oil-rich country.
"We inherited an exhausted
electricity system in generating stations and distributing nets, but
we were able to supply 50 percent of consumer demand during heavy load
periods, and more than that during ordinary days," an engineer
with the Ministry of Electricity told IPS.
"The situation now is
much worse and it seems not to be improving despite the huge contracts
signed with American companies. It is strange how billions of dollars
spent on electricity brought no improvement whatsoever, but in fact
worsened the situation."
The engineer said "we
in the ministry have not received any real equipment for our senior
stations, and the small transformers for the distributing nets were
of very low standard."
Bechtel's contract included
reconstruction of water treatment systems, electricity plants, sewage
systems, airports and roads.
Two former Iraqi ministers
of electricity were charged with corruption by the Iraqi Commission
of Integrity set up under the occupation. One of them, Ayham al-Samarraii,
was sentenced to jail but was taken away by his U.S. security guards.
He insisted that it was not he who looted the ministry's money.
Managers at water departments
all over Iraq say that the only repairs they managed were through UN
offices and humanitarian aid organisations. The ministry provided them
with very little chlorine for water treatment. New projects were no
more than simple maintenance moves that did little to halt collapsing
infrastructure.
Bechtel was among the first
companies, along with Halliburton, where U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney
once worked, to have received fixed-fee contracts drawn to guarantee
profit.
Ahmed al-Ani who works with
a major Iraqi construction contracting company says the model Bechtel
adopted was certain to fail.
"They charged huge sums
of money for the contracts they signed, then they sold them to smaller
companies who resold them again to small inexperienced Iraqi contractors,"
Ani told IPS. "These inexperienced contractors then had to execute
the works badly because of the very low prices they get, and the lack
of experience."
Some Iraqi political analysts,
rather optimistically, look at Bechtel's departure from a different
angle.
"I see the beginning
of a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq," Maki al-Nazzal told IPS. "It
started with Bechtel and Haliburton's propaganda, and might end with
their escape from the field. They came with Bremer and introduced themselves
as heroes and saviours who would bring prosperity to Iraq, but all they
did was market U.S. propaganda."
U.S. President George W.
Bush told reporters on a visit to Iraq last June: "You can measure
progress in megawatts of electricity delivered. You can measure progress
in terms of oil sold on the market on behalf of the Iraqi people."
By his standards, the position
in Iraq is now much worse.
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