21 October 2003
Morale of Coalition Personnel in Iraq High, Labor Official Says
Reports on efforts to focus Iraq on employment, training
By Kathryn McConnell
Washington File Staff Writer
Washington -- Morale among coalition civilian and military personnel working on reconstruction in Iraq is "very high," according to a Bush administration official who spent four months working with Iraq's Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs.
Chris Spear, U.S. assistant secretary of labor for policy, said his work paying government workers and retirees, drawing up plans for job training centers, rehabilitating orphanages and centers for the disabled and elderly, and getting the ministry functional with an authentic focus on labor issues was very fulfilling. Spear spoke October 21 at the Heritage Foundation, a Washington research institute.
Spear said his team of four initially conducted on-site assessments of the ministry's 38 buildings located around the country to determine rehabilitation needs after years of neglect and the looting that followed the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime. He also focused on helping to develop a labor ministry that prioritized job training.
Saddam's only "vocational training" program was to use the ministry as a facility for building bombs, he said Iraqis had told him. During assessments, he said, his team found both unexploded and exploded ordnance in several ministry buildings.
Spear said one of the first major challenges he faced was a lack of skilled middle managers in the ministry, which had been dominated by senior Baathist party members. Another challenge was building an employment and retiree database and registering workers by skill.
He said the coalition has two major long-term goals related to labor issues in Iraq. One is to develop a network of national employment and training centers where skills in areas such as agriculture and construction can be taught, "not how to build bombs."
He added that three recently recruited women who work at the labor ministry had been receiving training in Washington on how to establish employment centers.
The second goal is to amend Iraq's labor laws so they are equitable and ensure workers' rights, he said.
Spear said the reconstruction work he was involved in and witnessed was "very much a collaborative effort" between Iraqis and coalition civilian and military personnel. He added that the coalition is also working closely with international organizations and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that have years of experience in Iraq.
The labor official said there are signs all over Iraq of the country's economic and psychological recovery from the Saddam regime. For instance, he said television satellite dishes are becoming a common sight on top of apartment buildings in Baghdad and street corners are flush with piles of consumer goods such as televisions, refrigerators and washing machines. Television dishes had been banned by Saddam, he added.
Water, sanitation and power services are expanding throughout the country, Spear said. Historic treasures are being restored and Iraq -- boasting ancient sites like Babylon -- has the potential to become a major tourist destination, he said.
Spear added that democracy is "flourishing" in the country in forms that include an increasing number of newspapers and elected community councils.
"I wish examples like these would be more equally represented in the [U.S.] media," Spear said.
Funding of payments to workers and retirees has come from seized assets and money for the physical reconstruction of buildings is from funds appropriated by Congress, he said.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
This page printed from: http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2003&m=October&x=20031021165529emmoccmk0.967663&t=usinfo/wf-latest.html
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