Congressional watchdogs Thursday opened an investigation into potential mismanagement of a U.S. medical training program in Afghanistan.

U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, asked federal officials to provide him with wide-ranging documents about the training program at Rabia Balkhi maternity hospital in Kabul.

The request followed an investigative report published Nov. 18 by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

"The AJC reporting on the Rabia Balkhi Hospital raises serious questions about how the Bush administration responded to concerns raised about dismal conditions at the hospital," Waxman (D-Calif.) said Thursday. "Millions of dollars have been spent on this initiative, and those funds should have been spent in ways that most effectively improve the quality of care for Afghan mothers and their babies."

The program, a pet project of former Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, began in 2003 to reduce death rates for Afghan newborns and mothers, which were among the highest in the world.

But for years, scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta raised concerns to HHS that the project actually might be endangering mothers and babies, the newspaper reported.

Numerous U.S. obstetricians and other health care workers, embassy officials and even former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned HHS that the project was troubled.

Many said it was hobbled by bad management, haphazard training and poor use of resources.

The hospital was long plagued by unsanitary conditions, at times even lacking soap and water. And, contrary to glowing HHS press releases, internal CDC records described gory and chaotic scenes in the first year of the project.

Most alarming to CDC officials in Atlanta, who were assigned to monitor care inside the hospital: The rate of normal-sized babies dying in labor and delivery at the hospital increased 67 percent last year, records show.

CDC and Afghan officials expressed concerns that the U.S. training program pushed Afghan doctors to perform more Caesarean sections before they and the hospital were ready, possibly contributing to the rise in deaths.

HHS has a team of four experts in Kabul now assessing the $23 million project and the increased death rate.

HHS officials, though concerned about the higher death rate, have said the project was an "unqualified success." The hospital has improved dramatically and saved countless lives, they say.

HHS spokesman Bill Hall said Thursday the agency will review Waxman's letter. HHS has "worked diligently in extremely difficult and dangerous circumstances to provide the women and children of Afghanistan a sense of hope through our work at Rabia Balkhi Hospital," Hall said.