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After record-breaking spending, the Iraq Project and Contracting Office closes shop.
For years, Bush administration officials have been saying that Iraqis ultimately will be responsible for rebuilding their country. That message received powerful reinforcement last month when the Pentagon quietly closed down the bureaucracy that managed the bulk of reconstruction projects in Iraq. With budget analysts estimating that American taxpayers have spent more than $30 billion to restore or create infrastructure and public services in Iraq since the U.S. invasion in 2003, the dismantling of the machinery that administered much of that largesse is a concrete sign that the American role in reconstruction is winding down.
"Please be proud," Dean G. Popps, the Army's principal deputy to the assistant secretary who oversaw the Iraq Project and Contracting Office, told several dozen former employees assembled for a closing ceremony May 17 in the Pentagon auditorium. "No other nation of people has been able to accomplish what you've accomplished, regardless of what the naysayers, the media [and other] detractors wish to tell you."
In the hierarchy of federal bureaucracies, contracting shops don't get a lot of respect, and perhaps none less so than the one responsible for delivering services, supplies and infrastructure to beleaguered Iraq. The PCO was established by a presidential directive three years ago to provide the acquisition and management support services necessary to administer...