Making a killing in Iraq - the other kind

I posted earlier* that there were complaints about Bechtel's school-repair contracts in Iraq - complaints from Iraqis.

Via Bob (via Left I via Atrios), it seems Bechtel really has been screwing the Iraqis.

On its corporate Web site, under a page titled "A Fresh Start for Iraqi School Children," Bechtel Group showcases sparkling new classrooms filled with happy, young Iraqi students.

But the reality is far different, according to Army investigators.

"In almost every case, the paint jobs were done in a hurry, causing more damage to the appearance of the school than in terms of providing a finish that will protect the structure," a recent Army investigation into Bechtel's work found. "In one case, the paint job actually damaged critical lab equipment, making it unusable."

... During repairs, "reports started coming in about poor quality," said 422nd Civil Affairs Battalion Maj. Linda Scharf, who was responsible for the schools in question, and who started fielding calls from concerned teachers and headmasters.

"So I asked one of my teams to go verify the rumors," Scharf said. "They took their digital camera, and the reality turned out to be worse than the rumors."

What they found: The subcontractors Bechtel hired left paint everywhere - on the floors, on desks, all over windows. The classrooms were filthy, the school's desks and chairs were thrown out into the playground and left, broken. Windows were left damaged, and bathrooms that were reportedly fixed were left in broken, unsanitary condition.

... Iraqi Education Ministry city planner Israa Mohammed had received complaints from the schools, too, and tried to get Bechtel officials to address them before classes started, she said. But Bechtel officials would not attend regular education ministry meetings, or answer her questions, she said.

"Because it is an American company, they didn't allow anyone to control them," she said.

For her part, Mohammed doesn't know what Bechtel spent the money on.  article

Yeah, I wonder.

I don't know why they hate us.


*I'm having one of those time warp things that I get every once in a while. I went online to my blog to find the previous post, and try as I might, I couldn't find it. I was sure I'd posted, so I went back into Blogger and did a search from there, and sure enough it came up - but it had today's date on it. I knew I didn't post it today, and I spent several minutes trying to locate it again online - still didn't show up. Weird. Very weird. Because when I get it to show up in Blogger (where I create the posts), it not only has today's date on it (and I posted it several days ago - before Dec. 02, because at that time I had another post referring to the information in the first one), but the link within it is the same link as this story above - which is dated today's date. How could I have a week ago posted a link to a Scripps-Howard news service article published today? (And frankly, I have no memory of what I read and linked at that time - I just remembered posting something about "repairing" the schools on the cheap.) Very, very bizarre. (But I've got some other computer stories I could tell you and won't. I'll just chalk it all up to inter-dimensional wobble.)

The one way I can figure that the post shows up in Blogger but not in my blog is that I posted it several days ago, but didn't publish it. You have to do both (for those of you who don't blog).

That could be why Blogger shows it with today's date - I didn't publish it yet - but that still doesn't explain how the link in it is to an article with today's date on it.

So whatever. Here's the post that I had posted:

WHOA! WHOA! WHOA!

It's not there any more. I just found it three times in Blogger's cache of my posts while I was trying to figure out what was going on.

I also did try to just go ahead and publish it a minute ago, but the program kind of went haywire, so I had to close it down. When I reopened it, the post had vanished.

Time warp. Dimensional jump. And I haven't even had any beer yet.

I think it's time to stop blogging tonight.

If it shows up again tomorrow....

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.