23 October 2003
Bremer Sees Momentum Building for Reconstruction of Iraq
Addresses media at Madrid donors conference for Iraq
By Wendy Lubetkin
Washington File Correspondent
Madrid -- The administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority, L. Paul Bremer, says he believes a positive momentum is building for the reconstruction of Iraq and expressed optimism about the outcome of the international donors conference currently under way in Madrid.
Bremer said that from his perspective in Baghdad, the past two weeks have been very positive. He noted that President Bush's request for $20 billion has been through both houses of Congress and the United Nations has unanimously passed a resolution that "lays out a path forward for the return of sovereignty to the Iraqi people."
Bremer said he also had "every confidence" that the October 23-34 International Donors' Conference on the Reconstruction of Iraq would be successful. "If you look at it, we already know that this conference will have more countries represented than any donors conference in history -- some 70 as of this afternoon."
"So we leave these two weeks with a lot of momentum behind the reconstruction of Iraq, and with the world community and the American Congress showing that they are solidly behind the effort to move forward ... to get a democratic, stable Iraq," Bremer told journalists in Madrid October 23.
Providing assistance to Iraq must be done "urgently," Bremer said, because of the connection between the economic situation and the security situation.
"Iraq is in a difficult economic situation now. The security of our forces depends, of course, on taking measures that are directly related to security. But it also depends on giving the people in Iraq a sense of momentum and a sense of movement forward."
Bremer and other U.S. officials took issue with the findings of a World Bank study which projected that Iraq may only be able to absorb $5 or $6 billion in assistance over the coming year.
"We believe that we can spend the money that the president has asked for, which is $20 billion, that we can spend it efficiently with transparency and accountability over the next year," Bremer said.
Bremer pointed out that the coalition has completed some 14,600 projects around the country over the past five months, a rate of around 100 projects completed every day.
"These are projects all over the country, everything from the big ones you read about --repairing bridges, getting the airport open, reopening the port -- to small ones where we give $2000 to replace windows in a school or $50,000 to put a generator in a hospital, or we clean up a playground or build a community center," Bremer said.
"So I don't accept the hypothesis that for some reason, with the difficulty of security, we cannot do reconstruction. We are doing it and we're doing it aggressively all over the country," he said.
Responding to a question, Bremer said he believed debt relief was important to Iraq's long-term stability
He compared the situation to the Weimar Republic, where unpayable debts imposed under the Versailles treaty were a major factor in causing political and social tensions in post-World War I Germany and contributed to the rise of Hitler.
"We expect this question to be addressed very soon," he said. "Certainly the United States government intends to take the lead in pushing for very substantial reduction of this debt, and this is one of the reasons why I have testified so strongly against having any of the American supplemental be in the form of a loan."
(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=20031023183744lcw0.9215357&t=usinfo/wf-latest.html
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