En særlig revisor for de mange amerikanske penge til Irak siger i sin afsluttende rapport, at nok har amerikanerne brugt 60 milliarder dollars siden invasionen i 2003, men mindst otte milliarder gik direkte til spilde.
The inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, Stuart Bowen, put the “limited positive effects” down to corruption, poor security and insufficient consultation with Iraqi authorities, BBC online reports Wednesday.
The eight-year war in Iraq cost the US about 800 billion US dollar and nearly 5.000 lives.
In “Learning from Iraq”, a final report to the US Congress before his office ceases operations, Mr Bowen says the failures in Iraq offer lessons for reconstruction efforts elsewhere.
The report was based on hundreds of audits and inspections across Iraq, as well as dozens of interviews with Iraqi and American officials and politicians.
“The general belief across each group is that the relief and reconstruction programme should have accomplished more, that too much was wasted, and that the lessons derived from the Iraq reconstruction experience should drive improvements to the US approach to stabilisation and reconstruction operations,” Mr Bowen reported.
Senator Bob Corker, the top Republican on the Senate’s foreign relations committee, said the report’s findings were “appalling” and that lessons must be learnt to avoid repeating mistakes in Afghanistan.
The US has spent about 90 billion dollar on reconstruction in Afghanistan over the course of a 12-year military campaign.
