July 1, 2004 – In several key areas such as electricity output, overall security and the health of the judicial system, a report by the United States General Accounting Office says the US-led occupation has left Iraqis worse off than they were before the US invasion last year. Among the report's findings: the number of significant attacks by resistance groups skyrocketed from 411 in February to 1,169 in May; the new Iraqi civil defense, police and other security units are suffering from mass desertions, are poorly trained and ill-equipped; Iraq's court system is more clogged than before the war, and judges are frequent targets of assassination attempts; and in 13 of Iraq's 18 provinces, electricity was available fewer hours per day on average last month than it was before the war.
The GAO, which serves as the investigative arm of Congress, also reports that only $13.7 billion of the $58 billion pledged and allocated worldwide to rebuild Iraq has been spent, most of it going to run Iraq's government ministries.
