U.S. troops spend $14.5 million to improve utilities; residents say conditions worsening

Fahem al-Isami

The engineering corps from the U.S. occupation troops in Iraq say they have spent $14.5 million to improve education, electricity supply and sewage facilities in the southern city of Diwaniya.

A statement by the body organizing U.S. civil projects in the country said the sum was spent on 500 projects which were all implemented by Iraqi contractors.

“These projects have contributed to improving educational, electrical and sewage systems,” the statement written in Arabic said.

Diwaniya is the capital city of al-Qadisiya province with an estimated population of nearly half a million people.

A later statement said the troops have allocated an additional sum of $500,000 to furnish 10 schools with modern supplies.

However, residents from Diwaniya disputed U.S. and Iraqi government reports of a tangible improvement in the standard of municipal services.

They said official figures of expenditures and rehabilitation of infrastructure were highly exaggerated.

“All this talk of reconstruction does not bear a grain of truth and contradicts the situation on the ground,” said Ammar Jaber.

He said it did not need a lot of effort to disprove the rosy picture given about public works carried in the city.

“Statements are something and reality is something else. Conditions are worsening and not improving,” he said.

Another resident, Hayder Abedali said he believed the U.S. and Iraqi government were allocating money for reconstruction. “But that is only as far as figures go.”

He said most of the allocations were wasted due to rampant corruption.

Residents from towns other than the provincial center of al-Qadisiya had a darker picture of conditions.

“These statements are false and contrary to the situation on the ground,” said Qassem Mansour from al-Hamza town.

“There is large-scale deterioration of an already collapsing infrastructure. All those in charge of the situation in the country are to blame,” said Mansour.

Shamkhi al-Hussein said official statements on reconstruction were making him “sick.”

“There is no transparency, no accountability. For this reason the province is descending into chaos as far as provision of utilities is concerned,” he said.

In the center of Diwaniya, the city’s commercial hub, traders urged the country’s civil institutions to “denounce” officials giving statements unrepresentative of the reality.

Mounds of garbage dot city center with untreated water inundating the streets.