A report from the office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) says that poor postwar planning for Iraq by the Bush administration meant that there were not enough skilled workers available to properly rebuild Iraq’s economy and public works. The Associated Press reports that previous surveys by the Bush administration and congressional auditors blamed the insurgency and the high price of security for the lag in rebuilding Iraq. “Pre-war reconstruction planning assumed that Iraq’s bureaucracy would go back to work when the fighting stopped,” it said. “When it became clear that the Iraqi bureaucracy was in widespread disarray,” occupation authorities “had to find coalition personnel to perform these tasks.” “The US government workforce planning for Iraq’s reconstruction suffered from a poorly structured, ad-hoc personnel management processes,” the report said, calling hiring practices “haphazard.” Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general, also recommended that the government establish a “civilian reserve corps” that could be deployed around the world to help rebuild areas devastated by war. Mr. Bowen’s previous reports had examined how the Bush administration had handled the $30 billion in Iraqi funds – known as the Development Fund for Iraq (DFI) – and the […]