In Iraq, U.S. Touts Provincial Reconstruction Teams as a Model

Museum building in Tikrit

TIKRIT, Iraq — U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad flew to the hometown of deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein on Thursday to pitch a joint civilian and military project as the model for this battered country's reconstruction.

In a muted ceremony on a U.S. base in this northern city, Khalilzad inaugurated the reconstruction team for Salahuddin province, the last of seven teams the U.S. has established. In addition, Britain, Italy and South Korea are sponsoring a team each.

While characterizing the reconstruction groups as the "embodiment of the U.S. commitment … to ensuring Iraq's success," Khalilzad acknowledged their limited financial resources.

"Now this country belongs to the Iraqi people, and in the end its success or, God forbid, its failure will depend upon the Iraqi people and their leaders," he said.

The teams will focus primarily on developing leadership at the local and provincial levels to continue the rebuilding process with diminishing U.S. financial aid.

Iraq's devastated infrastructure swallowed up a $21.4-billion congressional appropriation for rebuilding with little visible effect. Millions of Iraqis still have electricity only a few hours a day, and sewage from failing systems backs up onto their streets.

The 10 provincial teams will have $315 million from U.S. funds in fiscal 2007, which has just begun, to continue construction projects.

Most of the money for putting the country back together will have to come from Baghdad, State Department officials have been saying in recent briefings and media events designed to introduce the provincial reconstruction teams.

The Iraqi money is to be largely taken from oil revenue, which has fallen far below levels originally envisioned for postwar Iraq as a result of infrastructure problems and insurgent attacks.

The teams represent a "transition from working with them to spend U.S. money to working with them to spend Iraqi money," Robert Tillery of the State Department said in a telephone interview Thursday.

This year, the Baghdad government budgeted $2 billion for redevelopment and will do so again in 2007, Tillery said.

But local and provincial governments have had difficulty spending the money because of their inexperience in controlling their own budgets, he said.

"What we are trying to do is help them with that," Tillery said.

Because security precautions limit the movements of Western media, the State Department has struggled to communicate just what the teams do.

Local government buildings are generally not safe to visit without armed escort. Government-sponsored media trips that tie up Army helicopters and personnel are infrequent and usually last only part of a day, leaving little time for reporting.

This drawback was evident during a recent media trip arranged by the U.S. military to the southern city of Hillah, where one of the first teams was established.

With armed guards outside, a panel of Iraqi provincial and district council members, most college graduates, lauded the knowledge they had acquired from training funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development.

They said they had learned how to prioritize their capital projects, prepare budgets and write proposals for funding.

They also said U.S. contractor RTI International had developed a database that streamlined city procedures. Reporters were whisked from the room before they could ask what was in the database.

Read the rest at the LA Times

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