Military Officer - May 2006 - (Page 46)

“His metabolism isn’t ready, but here it all is. And he cannot eat it all. And some of the food becomes rotten and has to be thrown out,” he says. “That’s what we’re doing. We’re giving Iraq so many new buildings, so many new projects that, yes, we’re giving a hungry man a meal — but it is too much at once.” To illustrate, McMillan notes that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) recently supervised the building of two health clinics for the Iraqi Army. “There is deﬁnitely a need for clinics; people are getting hurt and wounded daily,” McMillan says. Yet only one clinic can be opened “because there are just not enough doctors to fully staff both.” Perhaps in four or ﬁve years, McMillan estimates, the health ministry will staff the new clinic. But what happens in the mean- time — to the building, its X-ray machine, and other equipment? “The worse thing that can happen is [locals] eyeball it,” McMillan says. “And then take the generator, and then the windows and the doors, and kind of pick it apart. We’ve had to build fences around some of these facilities and lock them up, put barbed wire up.” A year of transition The day of his phone interview with MOAA from his Baghdad ofﬁce, Brig. Gen. William H. McCoy, USACE’s Gulf Region Division commander, had on his desk the latest report to Congress from Stuart W. Bowen Jr., special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction (SIGIR). Bowen provides a comprehensive quarterly analysis of the reconstruction efforts. Bowen’s January 2006 report raised many concerns. It conﬁrmed “I don’t think we’re making an absolute big difference right now. … But I think they can see a brighter horizon.” — Brig. Gen. William H. McCoy, commander of the Army Corps of Engineers’ Gulf Region Division a major bribery and kickback scheme involving millions of dollars. SIGIR’s investigation led to the arrest of four Americans. The report described how at least $5.8 billion in assets and oil money seized from Saddam Hussein’s government was doled out to contractors by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) with minimal record-keeping or accountability. “Anytime you have huge sums of money, largely uncontrolled, and humans, you run the risk of having a problem,” says McCoy. Most of the report, however, examined the handling of the Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund, money Congress appropriated to rebuild Iraq from the war’s damage and years of economic sanctions and government neglect. From October 2003 to June 2004, the CPA controlled billions of dollars for rebuilding. Responsibility then shifted to the U.S. Embassy and the Multi-National Force-Iraq when Iraqi interim leaders took over and the CPA was dismantled. Last December, responsibility for the remaining construction funds shifted to McCoy’s division. Previously, his ofﬁce handled construction management only. But now it has the Project and Contracting Ofﬁce, from which funds are dispersed. McCoy says he has “a very rigorous auditing capability and control mechanism that is as close to absolutely honest as we can make it.” If that’s not enough, McCoy says, he knows Bowen has “about 32 A laborer cleans the turbine housing of a power generator in Bayji, Iraq (left). Iraqi citizens work closely with the Army Corps of Engineers. (far left) USACE Maj. Stewart Stanton provides direction at a construction site in Iraq. 46 MILITARY OFFICER M AY 2 0 0 6 PHOTOS: LEFT, MITCH FRAZIER/U.S. ARMY; FAR LEFT, EDWARD MARTENS/U.S. ARMY

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Military Officer - May 2006 Contents From the Editor President's Page Your Views MOAA Directory Rapid Fire Washington Scene Financial Forum Ask the Doctor Chapter Activities Raising Iraq Dogfight Fun Caring For Our Own Pages of History Information Exchange MOAA Scholarship Donors Member Books Advertising Index MOAA Calendar Sounding Taps Encore

Military Officer - May 2006

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