How the American taxpayer got plucked in Iraq

[egslim]

How the American taxpayer got plucked in Iraq
The title says all, and while some will probably attack the source, the article gives too many concrete examples of maladministration to be discarded that easily.

a chicken-processing plant built with your tax dollars and overseen by my ePRT (embedded Provincial Reconstruction Team). [...] In this case, the price was $2.58 million for the facility.

[...]

Our guide quickly noted that the plant had purchased 25 chickens that morning specifically to kill for us and to feature in a video on the glories of the new plant. This was good news, a 100 percent jump in productivity from previous days, when the plant killed no chickens at all.

The article continues to describe the processing of the 25 chickens in detail. The high-tech facilities used include a piece of wire to cut off the necks on a parking lot, a steel tub and a knife for gutting, and of course a refrigerator for storage. Remember, $2.58 million!

According to our press release, the key to the project was “market research which indicated Iraqis would be willing to pay a premium for fresh, halal-certified chicken, a market distinct from the cheaper imported frozen chicken found on Iraqi store shelves.” The only problem was that no one actually did any market research.

Chicken from the facility cost 4000 dinar, live chickens on the market 3000 dinar, and Brazilian imported chicken 2200 dinar. No wonder they weren't selling anything.

We measured the impact of our projects by their effect on us, not by their effect on the Iraqis. Output was the word missing from the vocabulary of developing Iraq. Everything was measured only by what we put in — dollars spent, hours committed, people engaged, press releases written.

The poultry plant had a “business plan,” but it did not mention where or how the chickens would be marketed, assuming blindly that if the plant produced chickens people would buy them

It gets even better:

a report on the poultry industry, dated from June 2008, by the Inma Agribusiness Program [...]. The report’s conclusion, available before we built our plant, was that several factors made investment in the Iraqi fresh-poultry industry a high-risk operation, including, among other factors, “Lack of a functional cold chain in order to sell fresh chicken meat rather than live chickens; prohibitive electricity costs; lack of data on consumer demand and preference for fresh chicken; lack of competitiveness vis-à-vis frozen imports from Brazil and USA.”

Despite the report’s worrying conclusion that “there are no data on the size of the market for fresh chicken,” the Army and the State Department went ahead and built the poultry-processing plant on the advice of Major Janice. The major acknowledged that we could not compete on price but insisted that “we will win by offering a fresh, locally grown product … which our research shows has a select, ready market.”

I would prefer to take that $2.58 million out of her combined salary and benefits, and if they fall short, sell her into slavery for the remainder. Can't stand this level of incompetence.

it was easy not to tell the journalist about the chicken plant problems. Instead, we had some chickens killed so the place looked busy. We had lunch at the slaughter plant — fresh roasted chicken bought at the market.

Some remarks on the people in the Green Zone:

Unlike the minority who traveled out on real business, most people at the embassy rarely, if ever, left the well-protected Green Zone in Baghdad during their one-year assignments to Iraq. They were quite content with that, happy to collect their war zone pay, and hardship pay, and hazardous duty pay while relaxing at the bar.

While many Americans like to consider their country capitalist, their military is a travesty of socialism: All kinds of generous benefits for its personel, projects way over budget and/or simply pointless, and extremely poor accountability.

 

[uk_dave]

Careful now, you'll have people calling for privatization of the military.

 

[egslim]

Careful now, you'll have people calling for privatization of the military.

That's already going on, in a way. US military personel in Iraq is replaced by contractors working for either Defense or State. I hear South America is a popular source for recruitment.

 

[WildCat]

So somebody screwed up with the chicken plant and that proves the US is an evil socialist country?

Why didn't Peter Van Buren stop the project before it got off the ground?

 

[Bikewer]

They have interviewed this guy on both Fresh Air and Weekend Edition. It's worthwhile to listen to the interview as well as reading the bits above.
He was a young civil servant who saw the Iraq duty as a pay raise and possibly a route to promotion.
It was only after he got there that he saw what was going on, and being a fellow on the bottom of the heap, he was not in a position to do anything about it.
He said the general attitude of State was "do something, anything". No one seemed to care if what was being done was functional, workable, efficient, or would actually benefit the Iraqis in any way.
Enormous amounts of money, much of it in cash, simply disappeared into the Iraqi hinterlands in pursuit of the "hearts and minds".....

 

[egslim]

No one seemed to care if what was being done was functional, workable, efficient, or would actually benefit the Iraqis in any way.

That sounds stereotypically socialist to me.

 

[WildCat]

That sounds stereotypically socialist to me.

You don't appear to understand the definition of "socialism".

 

[egslim]

You don't appear to understand the definition of "socialism".

You appear more concerned with my understanding of socialism, than with the wastage of your taxmoney in Iraq under State's and the US military's supervision.

 

[Drachasor]

While many Americans like to consider their country capitalist, their military is a travesty of socialism: All kinds of generous benefits for its personel, projects way over budget and/or simply pointless, and extremely poor accountability.

You are confusing a corruption with socialism. The two aren't related.

 

[WildCat]

You appear more concerned with my understanding of socialism, than with the wastage of your taxmoney in Iraq under State's and the US military's supervision.

Wasting money, that's what government does. They waste far more of it in the US itself.

 

[egslim]

You are confusing a corruption with socialism. The two aren't related.

Generous benefits aren't signs of corruption, they're features of socialism.

Spending $ 2.58 million on a primitive plant that could probably be set up for less than 1/2 that cost doesn't imply corruption either, unless major Janice took some kind of bribe. Not caring about the cost because it's not your money is a feature of socialism.

And building a plant that doesn't produce anything because its costs are too high to compete is the classical state factory vs products from the free market.

 

[egslim]

Wasting money, that's what government does. They waste far more of it in the US itself.

Ok, so you don't care about the government wasting money. And since many of your fellow voters probably don't care either, you get the government you deserve.

 

[WildCat]

Ok, so you don't care about the government wasting money. And since many of your fellow voters probably don't care either, you get the government you deserve.

I do care, but that doesn't mean it's socialism.

 

[WildCat]

Generous benefits aren't signs of corruption, they're features of socialism.

Cite?

Spending $ 2.58 million on a primitive plant that could probably be set up for less than 1/2 that cost doesn't imply corruption either, unless major Janice took some kind of bribe. Not caring about the cost because it's not your money is a feature of socialism.

Do you have any evidence of this claim?

And building a plant that doesn't produce anything because its costs are too high to compete is the classical state factory vs products from the free market.

Like Solyndra?

 

[Toke]

I don`t see how anyone can call private companies and corrupt/incompetent buerocrats pissing away taxpayers money for socialism?

Unless it is some kind of ingrained rightwing reflex to call anything bad or disagreable for socialism?

What is wrong with calling it corporate croniyism?

 

[steve s]

Our guide quickly noted that the plant had purchased 25 chickens that morning specifically to kill for us and to feature in a video on the glories of the new plant. This was good news, a 100 percent jump in productivity from previous days, when the plant killed no chickens at all.

Another example of mathematical illiteracy in the media.

Steve S

 

[WildCat]

I don`t see how anyone can call private companies and corrupt/incompetent buerocrats pissing away taxpayers money for socialism?

Unless it is some kind of ingrained rightwing reflex to call anything bad or disagreable for socialism?

What is wrong with calling it corporate croniyism?

IMHO, egslim is calling it "socialism" solely because he thinks it will put right-wingers in a bind if they support the rebuilding efforts in Iraq. In his fantasy it goes like this:

egslim: Rebuilding Iraq is socialism!
slack-jawed yokel right-winger: Gol dang, I can't support the Iraq war or the rebuilding because that would make me a no-good big government socialist!

This is all about politics to egslim, he'she is not really interested in the waste. The waste is just a tool to bash the other side. Much like calling the Alaska oil royalties socialism in an attempt to dampen support for Sarah Palin... as if you'd have to dig that deep to do that.

 

[WildCat]

Another example of mathematical illiteracy in the media.

Steve S

I just assumed they killed 12.5 chickens most days.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

I just assumed they killed 12.5 chickens most days.

Must be some sort of quantum effect.

 

[Toke]

Wildcat,
I see, that explains the OP.