Who's Got the Data?

In general, the GAO (Government Accountability Office) does a good job. Aalthough their reports are a trifle circumspect, they’re fairly non-partisan and have no ax to grind. Over the past few years they’ve been auditing what they call Operation Iraqi Freedom. Last week they published a few more of their reports on “Rebuilding Iraq”.

The most important of these reports is the one entitled “Status of Funding and Reconstruction Efforts”. What they’ve found is, as you’d expect, not too good:

• Oil production and export is lower now than before the war.
• Electricity production is less than before the war.
• Iraqi access to clean water and decent sanitation is not measured.
• There was not even a list of the 64 water and sanitation projects the State Department claims to have completed.

Their conclusion: “Reconstruction efforts continue to face challenges such as rebuilding in an insecure environment, ensuring the sustainability of completed projects, and measuring program results.”

The issue of having meaningful data pops up again in the report “Preliminary Observations on Challenges in Transferring Security Responsibilities to Iraqi Military and Police”. The conclusion here:” ..without reliable reporting data, a more capable Iraqi force, and stronger Iraqi leadership, the Department of Defense faces difficulties in implementing its strategy to draw down U.S. forces from Iraq”.

And, again, the question of meaningful data in “Actions Needed to Improve Use of Private Security Providers”: “Despite the significant role played by private security providers in enabling reconstruction efforts, neither the Department of State, nor DOD nor the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) have complete data on the costs of using private security providers.”