The Bush administration has been quietly training scores of civil servants to oversee the transformation of the Iraqi economy in the aftermath of military strikes. The effort is said to have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
A private consultancy firm, contracted by the State Department, has been training Iraqi exiles in economics, accountancy and finance in preparation for restructuring the country's state-controlled system into a Western, market-driven economy.
The measures are further evidence of American preparations for regime change in Iraq, even as weapons inspectors get ready to return to the country in accordance with a United Nations resolution. They are part of larger preparations by the State Department's Near-East division to administer Iraq in the days, weeks and months after a US-led military operation.
Those preparations, entitled the "Future of Iraq Project", have led to the establishment of more than 15 working groups. They are examining issues ranging from a transitional justice system, energy supplies and public health to public finance. "We have to consider the administration of Iraq from the very day after any military operation," said a State Department spokesman.
The Independent has learnt that the economic training is the work of ICF Consulting, a Virginia-based corporation specialising in providing management, technology and policy skills.
Its website says: "ICF Consulting can help you find out where your region's economy has been, where it is going, and where it needs to be in order to achieve goals of a high performing nation, state, or region."
No one from the company was available for comment yesterday, but a source said: "The training covers a number of areas in regard to the economy."
Entifadh Qanbar, director of the Washington office of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), a London-based Iraqi opposition group, said he was aware of the training provided by ICF. He said he believed up to 100 Iraqis had been involved and that the training had "cost hundreds of thousands of dollars".
But he said: "It is not engagement on a wide enough scale from a country that is considering the invasion of Iraq. You have to have a very intense level of engagement, not just a group of people here and there deciding the future of Iraq."
America isplanning to install a senior military commander as head of a transitional authority in Iraq, similar to the post-war occupation of Germany and Japan. That regime could last for several years. President Bush's senior adviser on the Middle East, Zalmay Khalilzad, said the plan would involve running the entire country until a democratic Iraqi government was deemed ready. General Tommy Franks, head of US Central Command, is thought likely to assume the role modelled on General Douglas MacArthur in post-war Japan.
The State Department apparently wants to ensure there is the expertise in Iraq for a transition to a civilian administration to be made as rapidly and smoothly as possible.
Faisal Qaragholi, the INC's operations officer in London, said there was already a trained civil service in Iraq but that, because of the repressive nature of the regime, there was a block to new ideas. "It will be important for Iraqis in the West to help bring up standards, to try and [develop] different ways of looking at things," he said.
Experts believe the occupation of Iraq would require about 75,000 troops, at an annual cost of up to $16bn (£10bn) and would almost certainly include British and other allied troops.