AP & Reuters | April 28, 2008

Millions of dollars of lucrative Iraq reconstruction contracts were never finished because of excessive delays, poor performance or other factors, including failed projects that are being falsely described by the US government as complete, investigators say.

An audit released yesterday by Stuart Bowen Jr., the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, provides the latest snapshot of an uneven effort that has cost taxpayers more than $100 billion.

About 110 contracts were terminated before completion because of the contractors' actual or anticipated poor performance, the probe found.

In addition, many reconstruction projects were being described as complete when they were not.

In one case, the Agency for International Development contracted with Bechtel Corp. to construct a $50 million children's hospital in Basra, only to "essentially terminate" the project in 2006 because of months-long delays.

But US officials modified the contract to change the scope of the work. As a result, a database of Iraq reconstruction contracts shows the project as complete, even though it was only 35 percent finished when work was stopped, probers said.

Meanwhile, Iraqi security forces found more than 100 bodies in mass graves, half of them south of Baghdad, the US military said yesterday.