Pentagon cuts funding for Iraq under pressure from Congress
WASHINGTON (AFP) — US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has withdrawn a 171-million-dollar funding request to build police stations in Iraq after demands from Congress to have Baghdad take on a greater share of reconstruction costs, according to a letter released Tuesday.
Writing to Carl Levin, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Gates said he had "decided to not proceed with reallocation of the 171 million identified for police station construction," as part of a larger 590-million-dollar budget for reconstruction funds.
"As an alternative, we will seek funding from the government of Iraq for this purpose," he wrote to the influential Democratic lawmaker.
"I heard the committee loud and clear on the need for Iraq to pay for economic and civilian infrastructure," the defense secretary said.
"I agree with you that Iraqis should pay for an increasingly greater share of the costs related to their security."
Levin welcomed the move but expressed frustration that Baghdad was not using more of its growing oil revenues to pay for reconstruction projects.
"After US taxpayers have paid at least 27 billion for Iraq's reconstruction -- while Iraq has tens of billions of dollars in accounts all over the world from profits from skyrocketing oil prices -- it is unacceptable that US taxpayers continue to bear a burden that the Iraqi government can and should assume," Levin said in a statement.
On April 3, the Pentagon asked Congress to reallocate 590 million dollars for construction and infrastructure improvements in Iraq. The funds were initially part of the 2007 budget for training and equipping Iraq security forces.
Democratic lawmaker Ike Skelton, head of the armed services committee in the House of Representatives, also said it was crucial for Iraq to pay for its own improvements.
"Reconstruction is something that needs to be done, and they are going to have to do it," Skelton told reporters.
"They can pay for an awful lot more than they are" because of high oil prices, he said.
He added that the American soldiers could not stay in Iraq indefinitely as it was putting a strain on the US military. "We can't be there forever," Skelton said.
"Should a major unexpected contingency occur today, it could not be answered in a timely fashion and this worries me," he said.
The conflict in Iraq had turned US attention away from Afghanistan, which "should be the number one priority," he said, adding "that worries me (that) it is not."
