IRAQ: The Bush administration has scaled back its ambitions to rebuild Iraq from the devastation wrought by war and dictatorship and does not intend to seek new funds for reconstruction, it emerged yesterday.
In a decision which will be seen as a retreat from a promise by President George W. Bush to give Iraq the best infrastructure in the region, administration officials say they will not seek reconstruction funds when the budget request is presented to Congress next month, the Washington Post reported yesterday.
The $18.4 billion allocation is scheduled to run out in June 2007 and the move will be seen by critics as further evidence of the administration's failure to plan for the aftermath of the war.
A decision not to renew funding for reconstruction would leave Iraq with the burden of tens of billions of dollars in unfinished projects and an oil industry and electrical grid which have yet to return to pre-war production levels.
Nearly half of the funds earmarked for reconstruction were diverted to fighting the insurgency and to the preparations to put Saddam Hussein on trial.
At least $2.5 billion earmarked for Iraq's delapidated infrastructure and schools was diverted to building up a security force. And funds originally intended to repair the electricity grid and sewage and sanitation system were used to train special bomb squad units and a hostage rescue force.
The US also shifted funds to build 10 new prisons to keep pace with the insurgency, as well as safe houses and armoured cars for Iraqi judges, according to the paper.
While 3,600 projects will be completed by the end of the year, the cost of security accounted for as much as 25 per cent of each project, according to the office of the Special Inspector-General for Iraqi Reconstruction.
The Post notes that fewer than 30 per cent of Iraqis were even aware of ongoing reconstruction projects, suggesting that the US has failed to extract public relations benefit from any of the reconstruction projects it has completed.