Baghdad — As he travels across Iraq, the man in charge of reconstructing the war-shattered country is greeted with a common complaint: If Saddam Hussein could rebuild the country in three months after the Persian Gulf war, why is it taking the Americans so long?
Most of the $18-billion (U.S.) reconstruction program has been slow to get off the ground, and it has been delayed further by the chaos and violence of recent weeks. But the reconstruction man, U.S. retired admiral David Nash, dismisses the complaint.
"Saddam Hussein had methods we don't subscribe to," he tells the Iraqis. "Besides, everything was held together with chewing gum and baling wire in those days."
According to Mr. Nash, the rebuilding work is finally on the verge of dramatic growth.
"We're poised now," he said in an interview. "I don't understand the criticism. We're moving along very nicely. The wheels are really beginning to move very rapidly now."
But as the American money begins to flow, the key question is whether there is still time to win the hearts and minds of the increasingly embittered Iraqi people.
It might be too late. A new poll, to be released this week by the Iraq Centre for Research and Strategic Studies, has found that 88 per cent of Iraqis now regard the U.S. troops as occupiers, rather than liberators, and that more than half of Iraqis want the troops to leave the country — compared with just 20 per cent last October. The poll was conducted before the shocking disclosure of graphic photos of U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners, so the anti-American hostility is probably even greater today.
Under the earliest prewar plans by the U.S. military, Baghdad's infrastructure was to be rebuilt by last August, with elections to be held last September and the troops leaving by October.
The reconstruction is far behind the original timetable. The budgeted $18-billion did not start flowing until January. About $8-billion was supposed to be spent in the first half of this year, but in reality only about $3-billion in contracts have been awarded so far. (A further $7-billion in contracts have been advertised.)
Most of the money is focused on police and army training and electricity projects. Some of the funds were diverted to pay for rising security costs, and $184-million in drinking-water funds was diverted to pay for the construction of a new U.S. embassy in Baghdad.
"The expenditure of the money has slowed down from our perspective because of the security situation," President George W. Bush told the Iraqi newspaper Al Zaman last week.
"People see on their TV screens the fact that aid workers or reconstruction workers get killed, and it creates a sense of fear — precisely what the enemy wants. That's why it's important for the Iraq populace and the leadership here in America to stand firm in the face of these terrorist attacks."
Many projects were delayed last month when armed clashes spread across the country, disrupting supplies and preventing many Iraqis from travelling to work. Scores of contractors and guards have been killed in recent months.
"We weren't able to go as fast for a while," said Mr. Nash, who heads the Project Management Office, which supervises the $18-billion reconstruction fund.
By some unofficial estimates, as much as 20 per cent of the reconstruction money is being spent on the private military contractors who provide security for the construction projects.
The electricity projects were severely hampered by the wave of violence and kidnapping that began last month. Hundreds of Russian workers fled the electricity plants, and two major contractors (Siemens and General Electric Co.) suspended or reduced their work.
Raki Raheem Mustafa, director of the main electricity plant in southern Baghdad, had planned to finish the rebuilding of four units by June 10. But supplies were disrupted by the violence, and 38 of his 103 Russian technicians abandoned the plant. Mr. Mustafa now expects that the four units won't be repaired until late July. He predicts Baghdad will get only 16 hours of electricity a day this summer — far less than the full 24-hour-a-day electricity that had been planned.
"We promised the people that we would improve their electricity," Mr. Mustafa said. "When these delays happen, it makes me very upset."
Mr. Nash acknowledged that electricity shortages will remain in Iraq for some time, but he argued that this is because of rising demand as the Iraqi economy revives. The number of air conditioners in Baghdad, for example, has doubled in the past year.
In the next phase of reconstruction, the U.S. will put its emphasis on health, education and water supply.
The top American education adviser in Iraq, John Agresto, warned this month that thousands of Iraqi university students are lacking basic supplies such as desks and chairs because the U.S. has provided only about $8-million of the $500-million needed to repair damage from the postwar looting.
Many hospitals still have shortages of essential equipment and medicine.
"The situation is very, very bad," said Karwan Dizayee, a doctor at two hospitals in Baghdad. "Medicine is often missing, and our equipment is poor. Sometimes we even have difficulty in obtaining basic IV equipment."
Another common grievance is the relatively small number of Iraqi businesses that have won contracts for reconstruction work. Most of the biggest Iraqi factories were looted after the war and remain idle today. Others find it almost impossible to navigate the complex system of winning tenders from the U.S. government.
"When they give contracts to American companies, it costs triple what it would cost if an Iraqi company did it," said Mohammed al-Sarraf, an Iraqi businessman who owns several factories, including one that turns out bottled water.
"Everything is being imported from outside the country. The Americans don't trust my products. They won't even buy my bottled water. We don't understand their mentality — they have so many rules and conditions for their contracts."
Mr. Nash said the critics fail to understand that there are incentive clauses in the U.S. contracts to encourage contractors to hire Iraqi suppliers.
So far, however, local business leaders see little sign of Iraqis providing supplies for reconstruction. Mr. al-Sarraf cites the cement industry as an example. Before the war, he purchased cement from Iraqi suppliers at $12 a tonne. Now he has to pay up to $85 a tonne for imported cement because nobody has repaired Iraq's factories.
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