Bush Admin Pleads For Other Nations To Fund Iraqi Water, Power Reconstruction

(ENS) TOKYO -- The Bush administration now is asking international donors to pay for the reconstruction of Iraq's electricity and water infrastructure, after last year excluding countries that did not support the U.S.- led effort to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from bidding on $18.6 billion in reconstruction contracts.

Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage made the plea for help to pay for repair of water, sewer and power infrastructure damaged during the war at a two day meeting of donors that concluded today in Tokyo.

Armitage said the appeal was necessary following a U.S. decision to shift $3.46 billion in funds away from these areas and into programs aimed at strengthening Iraq's security forces.

The donor's meeting rounded up only one new pledge. Iran, Iraq's old adversary, has offered $10 million to help its strife-torn neighbor recover.

The meeting, attended by 57 nations and international organizations, is a follow up to last year's donor meeting in Madrid, which raised $13 billion in pledges. Only about $ billion of those funds has been spent to date.

"I have no doubt that many of those who pledged monies at Madrid a year ago are looking for sectors in which to put those pledges and I think the electrical and water area are two areas which will find great favor internationally," Armitage told reporters October 13 in Tokyo.

By contrast in 2003, President George W. Bush told the international community not to apply for contracts to reconstruct Iraq if they had not contributed troops to the U.S. led coalition.

"Our people risked their lives," the President said last December. "Coalition, friendly coalition folks risked their lives and therefore, the contracting is going to reflect that, and that's what the U.S. taxpayers expect."

Canada, France, Germany, and Russia have been excluded from bidding on construction projects by this policy.

But the United States has been very slow to utilize the $18.6 billion in American funds earmarked for reconstruction, with only $1.2 billion disbursed by September 22, according to a State Department report released last week.

Iraq's delegation to the donor meeting, led by Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh, expressed concern over the slow rate of disbursement.

Armitage acknowledged that the United States took, "longer than was necessary to get our act together prior to turning over sovereignty and hence June 28th, when we turned over sovereignty to the Interim Iraqi government, we had dispersed only 400 million dollars."

"Today, I was able to report to the conference that in the last three months, we've been able to usefully and correctly push out about a billion more in dispersements," said Armitage, "and I'm looking, and have publicly told the U.S. Congress, for an average of about 400 million dollars a month being dispersed."

The head of the Iraq Reconstruction Management Office, Ambassador William Taylor, told news reporters at a U.S. Department of Defense briefing October 7 that reconstruction work is proceeding with a sense or urgency to demonstrate to the Iraqi people that their lives are improving by the time they vote in the January 2005 elections.

The United States is "working very hard toward the next political goal in this country, which, of course, is the election coming up no later than the 31st of January," Taylor said in Baghdad in a digital video conference with reporters in Washington.

Taylor provided a list of the infrastructure projects that are under way or completed. "Right now there are 28 water treatment plants under construction, and five have been completed," he said.

"There are 13 sewer projects under construction; one's been completed, said Taylor. "There are 72 health care facilities under construction, and 73 more have been completed. There are 3,100 schools that have been rehabilitated. There are five public buildings under construction; one's completed."

Taylor said 37 electricity distribution substations are under construction or under rehabilitation.

"There were $2 billion that were removed from the water program, and a billion dollars from the electricity program," he said in order to respond to the increase in violence with additional funds for the police and the National Guard and the army.

Taylor said dangerous security conditions in Iraq have slowed the pace of reconstruction. Truck convoys carrying heavy equipment, he said, present easy targets.

"These convoys, in some cases, move very slowly, and they're carrying very large pieces of equipment. They move 10 miles [16 kilometers] an hour over long stretches of road, which presents a very large and easy target. These kinds of movement, these kinds of attacks on these kinds of convoys stretch out ... clearly, the work on reconstruction," he said.

In Tokyo, Deputy Prime Minister Saleh maintained that many parts of the country are safe enough for projects to be carried out.

As a first step, the Iraqi delegation suggested that donors might find it easy to start projects in those areas in which there has been no security problems, and Saleh said that there were nine or 10 of them that are, in their view, completely free of security risks.

The Iraqi delegation appealed to the donors for debt relief. Iraq owes a total of $125 billion in external debt.

Deputy Secretary Armitage was unable to say exactly how much of Iraq's debt has been forgiven following former Secretary of State James Baker's meetings this month with Iraq's international lenders, but he said, "It is our view, shared by some in the international community, that the way to go is to forgive the majority of the debt."

He said, "Eliminating that debt won't guarantee the success of Iraq, but without it, there is no ability for Iraq to be successful."

In response to concerns that countries would be reticent to disburse funds to Iraq for fear that the money would be lost to corruption and mismanagement, Armitage said that the Iraqis are addressing this problem through inspector generals in each of the ministries.