By Amit R. Paley
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 28, 2006; Page A01BAGHDAD, Sept. 27 -- A $75 million project to build the largest police academy in Iraq has been so grossly mismanaged that the campus now poses health risks to recruits and might need to be partially demolished, U.S. investigators have found.
The Baghdad Police College, hailed as crucial to U.S. efforts to prepare Iraqis to take control of the country's security, was so poorly constructed that feces and urine rained from the ceilings in student barracks. Floors heaved inches off the ground and cracked apart. Water dripped so profusely in one room that it was dubbed "the rain forest."
"This is the most essential civil security project in the country -- and it's a failure," said Stuart W. Bowen Jr., the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, an independent office created by Congress. "The Baghdad police academy is a disaster."
The report serves as the latest indictment of Parsons Corp., the U.S. construction giant that was awarded about $1 billion for a variety of reconstruction projects across Iraq. After chronicling previous Parsons failures to properly build health clinics, prisons and hospitals, Bowen said he now plans to conduct an audit of every Parsons project.
"The truth needs to be told about what we didn't get for our dollar from Parsons," Bowen said.
As top U.S. military commanders declared 2006 "the year of the police," in an acknowledgment of their critical role in allowing for any withdrawal of American troops, officials highlighted the Baghdad Police College as one of their success stories.
"This facility has definitely been a top priority," Lt. Col. Joel Holtrop of the Corps of Engineers' Gulf Region Division Project and Contracting Office said in a July news release. "It's a very exciting time as the cadets move into the new structures."
Complaints about the new facilities, however, began pouring in two weeks after the recruits arrived at the end of May, a Corps of Engineers official said.
The most serious problem was substandard plumbing that caused waste from toilets on the second and third floors to cascade throughout the building. A light fixture in one room stopped working because it was filled with urine and fecal matter. The waste threatened the integrity of load-bearing slabs, federal investigators concluded.
Phillip A. Galeoto, director of the Baghdad Police College, wrote an Aug. 16 memo that catalogued at least 20 problems: shower and bathroom fixtures that leaked from the first day of occupancy, concrete and tile floors that heaved more than two inches off the ground, water rushing down hallways and stairwells because of improper slopes or drains in bathrooms, classroom buildings with foundation problems that caused structures to sink.
Galeoto noted that one entire building and five floors in others had to be shuttered for repairs, limiting the capacity of the college by up to 800 recruits. His memo, too, pointed out that the urine and feces flowed throughout the building and, sometimes, onto occupants of the barracks.
"This is not a complete list," he wrote, but rather a snapshot of "issues we are confronted with on a daily basis (as recent as the last hour) by the incomplete and/or poor work left behind by these builders."
The U.S. military initially agreed to take a Washington Post reporter on a tour of the facility Wednesday to examine the construction issues, but the trip was postponed Tuesday night. Federal investigators who visited the academy last week, though, expressed concerns about the structural integrity of the buildings and worries that fecal residue could cause a typhoid outbreak or other health crisis.
"They may have to demolish everything they built," said Robert DeShurley, a senior engineer with the inspector general's office. "The buildings are falling down as they sit." - Washington Post
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Just who is Parsons? How much money is the US paying them?
Iraq: Parsons Corp. Wins $900 Million ContractReuters
March 30th, 2004
SAN FRANCISCO, March 30 - California's Parsons Corp., one of the most active U.S. companies in Iraq, said on Tuesday it won a contract worth up to $900 million from the U.S. military for security and justice work in Iraq.
The privately-owned engineering and construction company said the latest deal includes the restoration and construction of bases for the Iraqi security forces, police stations, border control stations, fire stations, courthouses and prisons.
The project for two years with three one-year options has a potential value of $900 million and is the second contract the Pentagon has awarded Parsons in a batch of $5 billion worth of heavy construction contracts funded by $18.6 billion appropriated by Congress to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure.
Parsons also is part of a joint venture with Worley Group of Australia performing up to $800 million worth of work to restore Iraq's northern oil infrastructure.
The company also is involved in a $1.8 billion infrastructure deal awarded in January by the U.S. Agency for International Development to engineering company Bechtel, a privately-held company also based in California.
Other lucrative Iraq business includes building military bases as well as a $1.5 billion contract Parsons obtained with the U.S. military for construction and engineering work in Iraq and other hot spots where the military is active.
Bidding for the latest batch of heavy-duty construction contracts was restricted to companies from nations that supported the U.S.-led effort to overthrow former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
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During the past five years, according to Federal Elections Commission records, Parsons has given more than $600,000 to federal lawmakers including Republicans Tom DeLay, Dennis Hastert and David Dreier, and Democratic US Sens. Hillary Clinton and Dianne Feinstein, US Rep. Hilda Solis and, at roughly $10,000 per election cycle, Pasadena Congressman Adam Schiff.
Since 2001, Parsons has also spent about $1 million on lobbying efforts, according to documents filed with the US Senate Office of Public Records.
During a June 2004 interview with KCET-TV reporter Jeffrey Kaye, Parsons CEO James McNaulty, a 24-year Army vet who was a program director for the Pentagon’s “Star Wars” Strategic Defense Initiative Program, took exception to the term “profiteer.”
“I don't accept that, and I don't accept the connotation that we are somehow taking advantage of either the Iraqi people or our government,” said McNaulty. “Our employees, frankly, take pride in the fact that we are helping the Iraqi people and Iraq as a country re-establish their infrastructure and enable them to stand on their own two feet. It makes us feel good.” -
Pasadena Weekly --------
Top 100 Federal Prime Contractors -- 2004
63: Parsons Corp.
President/CEO: James McNulty, chairman and CEO;
Frank DeMartino, president and COO
Source:
Washington Technology Top 100 Federal Prime Contractors -- 2004
25: Parsons Corp. Top 100 Contributors List
2004 Total Contributions: $264,650
2004 Republican Contributions: $135,750
2004 Democrat Contributions: $128,900
2004 Contributions to George Bush: $17,950
2004 Contributions to John Kerry: $6,850
2004 PAC Contributions: $214,600
2004 Contributions to individual candidates: $50,050
2000 Total Contributions: $99,750
2000 Republican Contributions: $59,950
2000 Democrat Contributions: $38,800
2000 Contributions to George Bush: $2,000
2000 Contributions to Al Gore: $550
2000 PAC Contributions: $93,750
2000 Contributions to individual candidates: $6,000
2000 Soft Money contributions: $0
Source:
Washington Technology --------
I'd say they got a fine return om their investment. Invest about $2 million, get back a $1 billion contract, and you don't even have to put out quality work.
