US squandered USD 8 billion in Iraq

A recent report by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Construction (SIGIR) has revealed that Washington has wasted at least USD8 billion in rebuilding Iraq.

According to the report, which provides an overall assessment of SIGIR’s mission in Iraq’s reconstruction, the United States has achieved little in its efforts to rebuild the war-torn country.

The United States’ eight-year war in Iraq led to the death of at least 5,000 American soldiers and cost Washington some USD800 billion, the report said.

The SIGIR report, which is based on hundreds of inspections across Iraq and several interviews with US politicians and officials, also stated that Washington should learn lessons from its failure in Iraq for its reconstruction plans in other places.

This comes as Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has told the publishers of the report that the United States has misspent some of its money in Iraq.

Iraq’s Top Sunni Muslim official and Speaker of the Iraqi Parliament Osama al-Nujaifi has also made objection to the US reconstruction plans in the country saying, Washington’s rebuilding projects “had unfavorable outcomes in general.”

Top member of the US Senate’s Committee on Foreign Relations, Bob Corker, has also found the findings of the report “appalling” saying the United States must learn lessons from this failure.

In 2003, the US and Britain invaded Iraq in blatant violation of international law and under the pretext of finding weapons of mass destruction (WMD) allegedly stockpiled by the former Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein. However, no WMDs were ever discovered in Iraq.

More than one million Iraqis were killed as a result of the invasion and the subsequent occupation of the country, according to the California-based investigative organization Project Censored.