Inappropriate appropriations
The Bush administration feels the heat over its Iraq policy as it seeks $87 billion for military and reconstruction costs. Khaled Dawoud reports from Washington
As polls showed US President George Bush's popularity slipping amidst mounting concerns over his Iraq policy, the Senate's Appropriations Committee witnessed heated debates on Tuesday concerning approval of the administration's request for $87 billion to pay for military and reconstruction costs in Iraq.
The Committee narrowly approved the bill along partisan lines, just ahead of taking the entire bill to the Senate floor. While there was no opposition to the military cost of US operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, Democrats of the Committee sharply criticised the administration's plan to pay $20.3 billion for Iraq's reconstruction, including five billion dollars to rebuild Iraq's police force, while America's economy remains troubled. Several Republican members also voiced concern over the plan that includes paying for a new Iraqi postal service and wireless Internet network, for example, while the US budget deficit has nearly reached a staggering $500 billion, and with many parts of the country lacking sufficient educational and health services. A US census report this week stated that 43 million Americans are without health care.
However, with a Republican majority in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, proposals by Democrats to turn part of the reconstruction bill into loans to be paid later by Iraqi oil money were expected to be turned down.
The administration opposes making Iraq repay the money, saying it already is burdened with a $200 billion debt. The majority of this debt is compensation to be paid to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia for Iraq's invasion of the former in 1990. Bush administration officials added that turning part of the reconstruction bill into a loan would also fuel speculation in the Arab world that Washington invaded Iraq in order to control its oil.
"The president squandered the good will of our allies after 11 September, and now he is asking Congress to shovel money into the hole he has dug for himself in the international community," said Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee. Republicans, however, argued that appropriating the $20 billion will make American soldiers safer and expedite their return home.
Reflecting the growing suspicion among the opposition over the administration's policy in Iraq, a Democratic member of Congress also accused the Bush administration this week of wasteful spending in Iraq, including giving lucrative contracts to "well-connected" US firms that could have been executed by Iraqis for a fraction of the cost. In a letter to the White House, Representative Henry Waxman of California said a picture was emerging of "waste and gold-plating" in Iraq that was enriching companies such as Bechtel and Halliburton, the latter an oil services firm once run by Vice President Dick Cheney. Waxman, ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, said members of the Iraqi Interim Governing Council (IGC) told his staff many costs to the American taxpayer could be reduced by 90 per cent if the work were given to local Iraqi firms.
Meanwhile, the Bush administration became entangled in another controversy over widespread allegations that it hyped the evidence against the former Iraqi regime in order to justify its invasion of the country.
In statements Tuesday, Bush instructed his staff to cooperate with a Justice Department investigation into whether the administration improperly disclosed the name of a covert CIA officer whose husband had criticised Bush's war rationale.
The controversy centres on the disclosure that Valerie Plame -- the wife of Joseph Wilson, a former US ambassador to Gabon -- was an undercover CIA operative specialising in weapons of mass destruction. Wilson, a critic of pre-war intelligence on Iraq, says his wife's cover was blown by administration officials looking to discredit him. US press reports said Bush's senior adviser, Karl Rove, was suspected of being the source of the leak, a matter which he vehemently denied.
In another rebuke of the US intelligence community, US lawmakers said on Monday that the White House relied on information that was circumstantial, fragmentary and filled with uncertainties to justify the Iraq war. The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, after four months combing through 19 volumes of classified material used by Bush's administration to make its case for war, found significant deficiencies in the intelligence community's ability to collect fresh intelligence on Iraq.
In addition, the latest edition of Newsweek also painted the picture of a Pentagon so focussed on winning the war that it didn't give the occupation a second thought.
The weekly reported that Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld prevented 16 of 20 Pentagon experts from going to Baghdad because they were either "Arab apologists", had positive opinions of the United Nations or held other views unacceptable to the hawks of Rumsfeld's inner circle. Rumsfeld has been sharply criticised by several congress members and in the US media for his alleged role in pushing the country towards war against Iraq without a proper plan for administering the country. Rumsfeld rejected calls for his resignation, saying he was acting upon Bush's orders.
The internal trouble facing Bush over Iraq damaged his administration as it sought more international assistance in stabilising and financing a new Iraq. Pursuant to this call for assistance, US officials are expected to submit a new United Nations Security Council draft resolution by the end of this week.
France and Germany have led calls for Washington to transfer power from US occupation forces to an Iraqi government within months as a condition for supporting a Security Council resolution.
Washington, which is trying to address their concerns with a timetable for handing power to Iraqis, is particularly eager for the resolution to be adopted before an international donors conference for Iraq to be held in Madrid on 23 October. US administration officials believe that a new UN mandate will attract more contributions.
It remains unclear, however, exactly how much a new resolution will help, as many potential donors maintain they are already overextended in other areas. Diplomatic sources have said the US administration is hoping for a pledge of at least two billion dollars in Madrid.
Several members of the IGC said this week that a key prerequisite of self-rule, a constitution, would take much longer to draft than the six-month target Washington suggested in a bid to win wider international backing.
State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher indicated in a daily briefing on Tuesday that Washington was flexible over a timetable for Iraqis to write a constitution and that this matter would be determined by the Iraqis themselves.
Tens of thousands demonstrated against the war in major cities around the world last weekend, capped by a protest of more than 3,000 in San Francisco who chanted, "Bring the soldiers home!" and "Money for schools, not for occupation!"
