Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Stealing Surge in Iraq

Move over, Halliburton. Dick Cheney's former company has been replaced as the Texas champion of ripping off American taxpayers in the "rebuilding" of Iraq.

A report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, a federal agency, finds that 8 of 11 rebuilding projects by the Parsons Corporation costing $365 million had to be stopped before completion for disastrous waste and ineptness.

The investigation was prompted by the company's $75 million construction of the Baghdad Police College, which ended up with feces and urine pouring from ceilings in student barracks, floors heaving off the ground, and water dripping profusely in a room dubbed "the rain forest."

As the U.S. military makes the country safer from insurgent attacks, American corporations are giving Iraq a taste of democracy in the sluggish, waste-ridden rebuilding of its infrastructure. Audits have found administration and overhead costs running as high as 55 percent on some projects.

In addition to its Texas connections, Parsons is one of the largest contributors to American political campaigns in the construction industry. That makes Middle East baksheesh look like small potatoes.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

So ... there is waste, All in Parsons Projects?

Anonymous said...

Read the story, it said in "8 of 11 rebuilding projects by the Parsons Corporation", not all.

Anonymous said...

Stimulus package? What has this war been for the country... a trillion dollars and counting. Just wait though, republican arguements against ending the war will quickly turn from terorism to saving our jobs. Just wait. The baby is gonna cry when momma pulls her teat away.

Anonymous said...

"So ... there is waste, All in Parsons Projects?"

It's amazing The Games People Play in regards to the waste All in Parsons' Projects.

Anonymous said...

We must all stand up and demand election reform. Same $ amount for every candidate, all from tax money, not a single penny allowed from any other source. TV and radio time equally given to each.

What we have now is nothing more than legalized bribery. We couldn't have established a more corrupt method of elections if we had tried.

Anonymous said...

I worked with engineering documentation provided by RM Parsons for ARCO Alaska on the North Slope several years ago.
They (Parsons) reproduced documents on a project that were copies of another project. All they did was turn the document over and reproduced a mirror image of the existing project, changed the tag ID's and sold it to ARCO for God only knows how much money.
These guys are pro's at switch and bait accounting procedures.
Big Business....LoL