swimming pool
- Thread starter bamamule
- Start date
greg334
Veteran Expediter
What I think he is talking about is the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction’s (SIGIR)report. I found the January 2007 report, down loaded it and read a little of it, but reading the BBC/Skynews and a Russian news service articles on this specific issue, it seems that the left (our press) has taking a bunch of things out of context and reporting on them as fact, one is the swimming pool and the waste of money spent on it.
I have read our press and liberal op ed’s on the issue has been about a swimming pool. It goes from an Olympic size swimming pool for the Iraqi military training to a swimming pool for the Iranian president to a swimming pool for bathing goats to a swimming pool that was built for the king of Iraq (President Bush is who I am assuming they are talking about) to an Olympic size swimming pool that had no work done but the contractor charged our government $100K to polish two pumps (which was cited in the GAO 4/06 report) to an Olympic size swimming pool for our super embassy to a.... and it goes on.
From page 140 of the 1/07 SIGIR report “Of the approximately $43.8 million spent on the residential camp, $4.2 million was for work that was not contractually authorized. The Iraqi Ministry of Interior directed the work, but DoS, as the contracting agency, never authorized it. The unauthorized work included relocating the residential camp to outside of the Adnan Palace grounds, manufacturing an additional 20 VIP trailers, and constructing an Olympic-size swimming pool on the palace grounds.â€
The key words here are not contractually authorized and Iraqi Ministry of Interior.
I find that the waste is something that is out of control not because of the administration but rather the congress. They are supposed to follow up with a lot of these finance issues and if someone knows how funding works and what the GAO suppose to do when oversight of the funding, you will understand that the dems should have been on the front line on this issue.
I have read our press and liberal op ed’s on the issue has been about a swimming pool. It goes from an Olympic size swimming pool for the Iraqi military training to a swimming pool for the Iranian president to a swimming pool for bathing goats to a swimming pool that was built for the king of Iraq (President Bush is who I am assuming they are talking about) to an Olympic size swimming pool that had no work done but the contractor charged our government $100K to polish two pumps (which was cited in the GAO 4/06 report) to an Olympic size swimming pool for our super embassy to a.... and it goes on.
From page 140 of the 1/07 SIGIR report “Of the approximately $43.8 million spent on the residential camp, $4.2 million was for work that was not contractually authorized. The Iraqi Ministry of Interior directed the work, but DoS, as the contracting agency, never authorized it. The unauthorized work included relocating the residential camp to outside of the Adnan Palace grounds, manufacturing an additional 20 VIP trailers, and constructing an Olympic-size swimming pool on the palace grounds.â€
The key words here are not contractually authorized and Iraqi Ministry of Interior.
I find that the waste is something that is out of control not because of the administration but rather the congress. They are supposed to follow up with a lot of these finance issues and if someone knows how funding works and what the GAO suppose to do when oversight of the funding, you will understand that the dems should have been on the front line on this issue.
"...the dems should have been on top"? Guess this oversite just took place. They have only been in the majority for one month!
Road Hooligan
Road Hooligan
greg334
Veteran Expediter
I think you both missed the point. Yes they were minorities at the time but you may have forgotten how our government works.
The dems had the power to play games with the republicans on a lot of issues, one thing is the filibustering of things in committee – for example the cr*p that they pulled with the appointments to the empty courts throughout the US, they used the filibuster force bush to compromise on who and how to select judges (this by the way everyone should be looking at recalling the people who did this because it left a hole open in our judicial system).
The liberals (aka democrat party) want everyone to think that they were completely powerless and unable to do a thing which is an outright lie.
The dems had the power to play games with the republicans on a lot of issues, one thing is the filibustering of things in committee – for example the cr*p that they pulled with the appointments to the empty courts throughout the US, they used the filibuster force bush to compromise on who and how to select judges (this by the way everyone should be looking at recalling the people who did this because it left a hole open in our judicial system).
The liberals (aka democrat party) want everyone to think that they were completely powerless and unable to do a thing which is an outright lie.
that's why i vote dem pre rep congress
but the actual point is the wasting of $ over there /can't pull out now but we need someway to keep these idiots from wasting $ so we can spend more over here b-4 we all in the us go bankrupt over this junk becaus we will never win or change thier minds over there
but the actual point is the wasting of $ over there /can't pull out now but we need someway to keep these idiots from wasting $ so we can spend more over here b-4 we all in the us go bankrupt over this junk becaus we will never win or change thier minds over there
greg334
Veteran Expediter
I agree that we should not waste money over there but the truth is that in any conflict, in any rebuilding be it Lebanon, Saigon, France (talk about waste helping france rebuild was a big waste) or Iraq, there has been a lot of waste involve - nothing is ever ever perfect. the problem here is we have been allowing Iraq to set their course, control the rebuilding in some cases and we also have a very hostile press who is very unamerican.
The problem is that any military operation cost money, be it training excersize or mock manuvers or actual combat. what we see in budgets can not bring us close to actaul accounting of every dime.
Also just fyi the cost of the military in regards of personal and support has actually come down from the 1990 level of operations. I mean that with better accounting systems, better training and a more thorough contractor system tied in with the use of better technology on the ground, per soldier cost adjusted for inflation has decreased. It used to be that you had to have X personal and X tonnage of equipment for each soldier but that has changed. Now this does not mean that the cost of maintainance of the equipment or the stockpile of parts needed to keep the euipment in the field and operational has been reduced by any means. And this also does not mean we recover equipment from an operation, I understand that we left a lot of equpiment in Bosnia for who ever wanted it, same with Somolia.
The problem is that any military operation cost money, be it training excersize or mock manuvers or actual combat. what we see in budgets can not bring us close to actaul accounting of every dime.
Also just fyi the cost of the military in regards of personal and support has actually come down from the 1990 level of operations. I mean that with better accounting systems, better training and a more thorough contractor system tied in with the use of better technology on the ground, per soldier cost adjusted for inflation has decreased. It used to be that you had to have X personal and X tonnage of equipment for each soldier but that has changed. Now this does not mean that the cost of maintainance of the equipment or the stockpile of parts needed to keep the euipment in the field and operational has been reduced by any means. And this also does not mean we recover equipment from an operation, I understand that we left a lot of equpiment in Bosnia for who ever wanted it, same with Somolia.