Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Stuart Bowen has emerged as one of the few plain speaking officials left in government after the departure of Richard Armitage . . . his latest report shows that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has not performed on a job related to flood control — this one in Iraq.

As Amit Paley reports from Iraq for the Washington Post, the Mosul dam, Iraq’s largest, is in danger of collapsing.  Representatives of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have identified the dam’s problems, and Paley plumbs them further, noting, for example, a round-the-clock operation to pump particle gypsum into the decaying dam’s underbelly.  The problem is urgent, and a collapse or a terrorist attack on this dam could lead to the deaths of half a million people.  The United States would be blamed.   Paley’s inquiry brings this potential crisis to light.  The United States seems to be taking no decisive action to handle a problem for which it is practically responsible. 

Paley notes that, according to the IG’s report, "little of the reconstruction effort led by the U.S. Embassy has succeeded in improving the dam."  And the IG’s own words are particularly damning:  "Our focus is on whether the project that the Corps undertook got carried out and the answer to that question is no.  The expenditures of the money have yielded no benefit yet."  That’s 27 million dollars’ worth of no benefit, if you’re still counting.

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