Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

U.S. military officials in Baghdad say continuing deadly attacks on coalition forces are having an impact on efforts to rebuild Iraq. However, officials said despite the armed attacks and acts of sabotage, significant progress is being made to reconstruct the country.

Army Major General Carl Strock, the deputy director of operations for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, spoke to reporters via satellite phone from Baghdad.

General Strock said ambushes of coalition soldiers, sabotage, looting and decades of neglect of the country's infrastructure are the major challenges facing those in charge of rebuilding the country.

"There have been attacks and this is not surprising or unexpected. As conditions improve the opposition is going to get more and more desperate in their attempt to destabilize the country and to discredit the coalition and our efforts here to put the nation back on its feet. We have in recent weeks put a lot more effort into security of infrastructure, particularly linear lines of communication for power and oil. I think we are beginning to see the benefits of that," he said.

Andrew Bearpark is director of regional services for the Coalition Provisional Authority.

Mr. Bearpark said despite attacks on soldiers and Iraqis who have been cooperating with coalition forces, citizens are helping with the reconstruction effort. "I think that people are beginning to feel that slightly greater sense of ability to talk freely. In parallel with that there are certainly, absolutely tragic incidents happening everyday, whether these are incidents involving coalition troops or local Iraqi workers. Hopefully, they will start to decrease very soon. Every single incident is one incident too many," he said.

Among other obstacles to reconstruction are the increasing acts of sabotage, especially against segments of the electrical system and the oil industry.

General Strock said these acts simply add to the hardships of the Iraqi people. "I think these saboteurs fail to recognize that these are really viewed by the Iraqis as attacks on the Iraqi people, not on the coalition. Increasingly they are alienating the people they are trying to gain the support of. So hopefully that will be something that they recognize here pretty quickly and will turn their attention elsewhere," he said.

General Strock said in the last six weeks the Coalition Provisional Authority has committed almost $1 billion to several thousand rebuilding projects throughout Iraq.

He said Baghdad will be open to commercial air traffic in about two weeks.

General Strock said current oil production is about 800,000 barrels a day.

He said reconstruction officials hope to boost that to a million barrels a day in a few months and as much as 2.5 million barrels within a year.