By ,
Published January 08, 2015
Soccer fields in Baghdad that the United States spent millions on sit deserted, littered with garbage, raising new questions about the wisdom of U.S. spending in the country.
The Washington Post reported Tuesday that soccer is the country’s favorite sport and spoke to one contractor who said he was paid $1.1 million by the U.S. Army to build a field in Sadr City.
The paper reported that it is difficult to see where the money was spent. The field is in such poor condition that residents replace the dirt every time it rains. There are two other fields made under similar contracts in the city now considered trash dumps.
These soccer fields have also been targets for bomb attacks. In October 2013, a bomb exploded near a soccer field while teens were playing south of Baghdad, killing at least five and injuring more than a dozen.
Meanwhile, there were reports of new attacks nearly two weeks after Iraqis cast ballots in the country's first parliamentary election since the U.S. military withdrawal in 2011. No preliminary results have yet been released, deepening a sense of uncertainty in a country strained by a resurgence of violence.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/baghdad-soccer-fields-that-cost-us-millions-sit-abandoned