By Pauline Jelinek
The Associated Press, 27 February 2006
Poor prewar planning left the United States without enough skilled workers to efficiently rebuild Iraq's economy and public works, according to a report issued Monday.
The study by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction provided a new explanation for the lagging reconstruction effort. Surveys by the Bush administration and congressional auditors have blamed insurgent attacks and the high cost of security.
Thanks to inadequate planning, the report said, early occupation officials lacked enough reconstruction staffers who knew what they were doing.
It recommended the government establish a "civilian reserve corps" to deploy around the world for postwar rebuilding.
While reconstruction has cost American taxpayers about $30 billion three years after the overthrown of Saddam Hussein, the country still lacks reliable electricity, water and other services. Monday's report — covering the time the country was under control of the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority — said early efforts were greatly affected by personnel problems.
"Pre-war reconstruction planning assumed that Iraq's bureaucracy would go back to work when the fighting stopped," it said. "When it became clear that the Iraqi bureaucracy was in widespread disarray," occupation authorities "had to find coalition personnel to perform these tasks."
"The U.S. government workforce planning for Iraq's reconstruction suffered from a poorly structured, ad-hoc personnel management processes," the report said, calling hiring practices "haphazard."
At one point, officials asked civilian and military agencies for personnel "but did not prepare detailed job descriptions because of time constraints," the report said.
In late summer 2003, a new recruiting team was set up in the Pentagon's White House Liaison Office, based in part on the "transition team" model used to staff new presidential administrations. The team quickly hired hundreds of new temporary employees, "but some possessed what proved to be inconsistent skill sets," the report said.
It also criticized the Bush administration for failing to get government employees from outside the State and Defense departments to work in Iraq.
And it said many people who were supposed to work there a year ran up so much overtime that they hit salary caps in six to eight months — and left.
"You had these 90-day workers getting their tickets punched that indicated, 'I've been to Baghdad,'" said a former senior U.S. official in Iraq who is quoted in the report.
The episode "demonstrated the U.S. government's critical need for a reserve civilian corps of talented professionals, with the proper expertise, willing to work in a hostile environment during post-conflict stabilization and reconstruction periods," the report said. Legislation to form such a corps was introduced last year but did not pass.
"The United States can deploy military people quite easily," said James P. Mitchell, spokesman for the inspector general's office. "But when they need to deploy civilians, it's very difficult and complicated and there is no system to do it."
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Citation: Pauline Jelinek. "Postwar Iraq Chaos Blamed on Poor Planning," The Associated Press, 27 February 2006.
Original URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060228/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_iraq_reconstruction
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