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Kirkuk lawmaker wary of city's status
Published: May 13, 2008 at 6:46 PM
BAGHDAD, May 13 (UPI) -- A Kurdish lawmaker Tuesday said Baghdad is so divided over a constitutional provision concerning the legal status of Kirkuk that it won't address the issue. -
Iraqi NGO calls for international funds
Published: May 13, 2008 at 6:44 PM
BAGHDAD, May 13 (UPI) -- The head of a consortium of Iraqi aid groups appealed to international donors to help displaced Iraqis and called on Baghdad to do better in helping its own. -
Iraqi girls' school gets upgrade
Published: May 13, 2008 at 6:36 PM
BAGHDAD, May 13 (UPI) -- Iraqi citizens, local leaders and a representative from the Ministry of Education attended a ceremony marking the completion of a girls' school in Mahmudiyah.
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Outside View: Open letter to candidates
Published: May 13, 2008 at 5:58 PM
By NEIL WOLLMAN and ABIGAIL FULLER
UPI Outside View Commentators
Thus far, your debate on the war in Iraq -- like the public and media debate -- has focused mainly on the questions of progress in security and political reconciliation, with some limited discussion on the war's effects on the U.S. economy and on our military preparedness elsewhere. -
Iraq Press Roundup
Published: May 13, 2008 at 12:29 PM
By HIBA DAWOOD
UPI Correspondent
The daily Al Sabah newspaper said in its editorial Tuesday that Hezbollah's taking over part of Beirut reminds us of similarities with the situation in Iraq. -
Feature: Notes on Iraq
Published: May 13, 2008 at 12:14 PM
By RICHARD TOMKINS
FOB NORMANDY, Iraq, May 13 (UPI) -- FOBs and COPs may sound like a new board game or Xbox distraction, but they're acronyms that actually define the lives of U.S. troops here. -
Analysis: Cybercrooks get credit card data
Published: May 13, 2008 at 12:00 PM
By SHAUN WATERMAN
UPI Homeland and National Security Editor
WASHINGTON, May 13 (UPI) -- Three men who hacked into the Dave and Busters restaurant chain and stole its customers' credit card data face federal fraud and conspiracy charges. -
Feature: Divisions, al-Qaida leave legacy
Published: May 13, 2008 at 10:01 AM
By RICHARD TOMKINS
MUQDADIYA, Iraq, May 12 (UPI) -- Hassan Abbas Mahmoud is an optimist, a desperate man or both. -
Atlantic Eye: Of kings and kingmakers
Published: May 12, 2008 at 3:05 PM
By MARC S. ELLENBOGEN
UPI International Columnist
BLOIS, France, May 12 (UPI) -- Lord Holme of Cheltenham was the former chairman of the British Liberal Party -- a classic European free-market oriented, centrist party. He was chair of the English College Foundation in Prague, where we became friends. To his enemies, he spent 30 years as the phantom behind the scenes, the kingmaker. A member of Global Panel America's Advisory Board, he lost his fight to brain cancer last week.
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U.S. looking into Iraq reconstruction contract requiring Iranian parts
Published: May 7, 2008 at 3:23 PM
The contract used U.S. funds but was authorized by a coalition contracting officer from South Korea, a prohibited practice that has been stopped, an official said.
UPI Editor
WASHINGTON, May 7 (UPI) -- U.S. forces are investigating two contracts to build schools in northern Iraq that required bathroom fixtures to be supplied by Iran.
The new elementary and middle schools built in Erbil were also authorized by a South Korean member of coalition forces, against U.S. contracting rules, but officials say this practice has been stopped and corrected.
The contracts for both the Sarwaran Primary School and Binaslawa Middle School, in the capital of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, "required that the bathroom fixtures be produced in Iran, which is currently under United States trade sanctions," according to two recent reports by the U.S. Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction.
The Binaslawa school bathrooms had not been furnished at the time of the Feb. 4 SIGIR inspection. There were three sinks and four toilets installed in each of the four bathrooms in the Sarwaran school, however.
"The contract required the wash basins and water closet fixtures be Iranian-made products," the report said. "Although we could not conclusively verify that the products were made in Iran, we noted that a Web site for the sink brand (www.chininam.ir) was an Iranian site."
A SIGIR official confirmed the contract language didn't require the specific company to supply bathroom fixtures, but the fixture did have to come from Iran. The company could not be reached. The Web site is only a homepage featuring pictures of bathroom fixtures and a note that "this site pages will be ready to see soon."
Col. Bill Buckner, spokesman for Multi-National Corps-Iraq, said U.S. funds are not allowed to be used to purchase Iranian products, and contracts "normally" do not specify supplier countries or companies.
"Contracts are typically executed based on a lowest bid process," he said in an e-mail response to questions. "However, there are some cases where Congress may stipulate items must be procured from certain sources (uniform items, minerals, etc.)."
The projects were awarded by MNC-I's Multi-National Division-North East, which is commanded by Korean forces, and awarded to a "local contractor" from a "list of competitors" provided by the Kurdistan Regional Government, the SIGIR report said.
United Press International has been unable to obtain copies of the contracts or the competitors list.
"A MNC-I investigation surrounding the MND-NE purchases is ongoing," Buckner said. "Based on trade sanctions the U.S. does not solicit bids from Iran."
He said it's unclear why an Iranian company was specified in the contract, adding "it would be inappropriate to comment further until the MNC-I investigation is complete."
The Sarwaran contract for $826,469 and the $676,741 contract for Binaslawa both exceeded the $500,000 minimum, above which a project using Commander's Emergency Response Program funds "must be negotiated by a warranted contracting officer," according to the SIGIR reports.
"The contracting officer for the Coalition Forces said that the delegation process for his authority started with the Multi-National Corps-Iraq Commanding General and continued through the Multi-National Division-North East Commanding General and Chief of Finance to him," the SIGIR reports said. "However, the Republic of Korea contracting officer could not provide any documentation showing that he was a warranted contracting officer authorized to award contracts on behalf of the United States."
Buckner said a U.S. government employee must "review and obligate funds for purchases" and "no documentation has been found" authorizing the Korean contracting officer's action.
"We identified the problem during the XVIII Airborne Corps' transition in early February 2008," he said, the same time as the SIGIR investigation. Coalition forces project purchasing officers were directed by the Corps "not to conduct any CERP funding transactions" without a U.S. government employee purchasing officer present, and issued an order "clarifying" only U.S. government employees could be PPOs.
"This was a procedural error that was immediately corrected once discovered," Buckner said. "There was no ill-intent, mismanagement of funds, or any other improprieties. As noted in the SIGIR report, the projects were managed and being completed to specifications."
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(e-mail: blando@upi.com)
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