By Herbert Docena
from -
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EJ28Ak02.html
some highlights...
MADRID - Despite new offers for broader participation in Iraq's reconstruction bonanza, the United States-convened donors' conference on Iraq ended in stifled disappointment, with only US$13 billion raised - a far cry from the $36 billion target. To dampen expectations further, up to two-thirds of the total pledges will take the form of loans, not grants. And if the Afghanistan fundraising experience is any indication, many of the pledges could still end up being just more broken multi-million-dollar promises.
'A very successful conference'
Most of the contributions came from those who were already expected to give anyway: Japan handed over $5 billion, Spain $300 million and Kuwait another $300 million. As expected, France and Russia gave nothing. Germany donated only $100 million, half of which was its share in the European Union's contribution. The Philippines pitched in a $1million it can hardly afford to give; Vietnam offered rice; while Sri Lanka promised tea. Arab nations, which the US was counting on to save the day, turned out to be the biggest spoilers.
To underscore just how seriously they thought of the fund-raising event, many of the governments sent only low ranking bureaucrats; others just assigned their Madrid-based diplomats to drop by and say hello.
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Emotional blackmail
The US's plea for money fell on many deaf ears, despite a fundraising strategy that entailed trying to convince the world that there's no other way to rebuild Iraq but to continue the occupation. In asking countries to donate, the US wanted the world to resign itself to the fact that it will not be leaving Iraq any time soon and that the only way to help the devastated Iraqis would be to finance the occupation.
Such was the line of reasoning adopted by the "international community" in the recent 15-0 United Nations Security Council resolution that effectively legitimizes the occupation and calls on countries to lend a helping hand.
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Needing the money so bad
Aside from holding the world hostage to the plight of the Iraqis, the US was forced to give up certain concessions and dangle sweeteners in order to encourage more generosity. Three days before the conference, the US finally agreed to set up the Iraq International Reconstruction Fund (IIRF) that will be independently handled by the World Bank and the UN separately.
"I need the money so bad we have to move off our principled opposition to the international community being in charge," the US's chief administrator in Iraq, L Paul Bremer, was quoted as saying. (3) If only it were not as desperate for cash, the US would have chosen to keep its grip on how all of the reconstruction money would be spent and to whom contracts will be given.
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The selling point
With the creation of the IIRF, however, the US has been compelled by its liquidity problems to share the reconstruction bonanza with non-US corporations. A crack at this lucrative bonanza was then held up as the main incentive to induce donor countries to part with their cash. "It's a way to get in on the ground floor," one high-ranking US official confided before the conference. "That's the selling point."
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The resistance
In the end, however, Madrid failed because - in the face of a mounting resistance that's no less determined than ever - there might be no future awaiting anyone who dares get in on the ground floor. It's a floor that anyone who still wants to have a future would not want to enter.
Despite much upbeat talk, Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez, commander of US and allied forces in Iraq, admitted last week, "The enemy has evolved: a little bit more lethal, a little bit more complex, a little bit more sophisticated. "(14) A recent report by the CPA on the security situation was described as a "sobering read". No less than US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has directly contradicted his and President George W Bush's more rosy public pronouncements by privately questioning the US's progress in Iraq.
As further proof of the Iraqi resistance's success in foiling others' plans for their country, an international conference for giant oil corporations' executives to meet with Iraqi oil ministry officials had been postponed indefinitely. Royal Dutch Shell still prohibits its employees from stepping on Iraqi territory. Instead of downgrading them, companies are raising their "threat assessments" because of fresh reports about plans to attack reconstruction corporations. (15)
One of Bechtel's sites, for example, was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade recently. Bechtel employees, who had been forced to live in trailers in camps protected by barbed wire, now have to travel in armed convoy with at least one designated "shooter" in every vehicle. That or they take a military helicopter and fly.
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full at
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EJ28Ak02.html
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