Aboush said that he was ignored and that he believes the decision to go with KBR was political. "I am old enough to know the Americans and their interests and they are not always the same interests as the Iraqi interests," he said.
U.S. officials contend the CPA was faithful to the terms of a United Nations resolution that gave the United States authority to manage the Iraq oil money during the occupation. "We believe that contracts awarded with Iraqi funds were for the sole benefit of the Iraqi people, without exception," Brig. Gen. Stephen M. Seay, head of contracting activity for the successor to the CPA's office, wrote in a response to a critical CPA inspector general report released last week.
_____Graphic_____
•
Iraqi-Funded Contracts U.S. companies are being paid at least $1.9 billion in Iraqi money for reconstruction work.
|
| |
|
The CPA identified the best company for each job, said Army Lt. Col. Joseph M. Yoswa, a Defense Department spokesman. He said shortcomings in the contract-award process should be looked at in the context of the volatile work environment in Iraq, where the need for speed and security were critical.
Critics of the CPA accused the occupation authority of using Iraqi money to bypass U.S. contracting rules on competition, oversight and monitoring for controversial projects.
"With American firms charging 10 times as much as Iraqi firms for construction work, with sole-source contracts being awarded, with allegations of money-wasting . . . is it likely that the CPA was doing its best to ensure Iraqi money was spent in Iraqi interests? It doesn't look like it," said Anthea Lawson, an analyst for Christian Aid, a nonprofit group that has been investigating the spending of Iraqi oil money.
Svetlana Tsalik, director of the Iraq Revenue Watch project of the Open Society Initiative think tank, said there were few clear distinctions between which pot of money -- U.S. or Iraqi -- the CPA would use to pay for reconstruction. "Whenever it had expenses that looked unpalatable for the U.S. public they would just dip into Iraqi funds," Tsalik said.
While it ran Iraq, the CPA had at its disposal at least $45 billion -- the biggest reconstruction fund since the Marshall Plan rebuilt Europe after World War II. The money included $22 billion that Congress appropriated in two supplemental spending bills, and $23 billion in two Iraqi accounts, one holding proceeds from oil sales and the other seized assets, including frozen overseas bank accounts from the Hussein years.
In most cases, to spend congressionally appropriated funds, CPA officials had to coordinate with officials in Washington, keep detailed records, advertise contracts widely and conform to waiting periods for bids to come in. Some of the money was held up by a turf war between the Pentagon and the State Department over who controlled the reconstruction.
It was simpler to use the Iraqi money.
Nearly all the Iraqi assets were held in what was known as the Development Fund for Iraq. It was used primarily to support Iraqi government ministries by paying salaries and expenses, according to budget documents. But some of the fund was used to pay private contractors for reconstruction projects. The main restriction on spending the money was that it be used for the benefit of the Iraqi people.
