RIYADH, 26 September 2003 — The day before President Bush stood before the UN General Assembly and asked for both foreign troops and monetary assistance for the rebuilding of Iraq, Paul Bremer, Bush’s point man in Iraq, faced an equally difficult audience on Capitol Hill. President Bush, who is struggling with rapidly declining approval ratings at home, appealed to the world body to forgive and forget his unilateral invasion of Iraq and to join “the coalition of the willing” in rebuilding that country. The majority of the UN member countries were not persuaded.

There is legitimate concern by both the UN and its members that sending their troops into Iraq will result in those soldiers becoming new targets for the various guerrilla factions to shoot at.

As Guillaume Parmentier of the French Institute for International Relations said, “The security of Iraq is the responsibility of the US under international law, which clearly states the responsibility is that of the occupying power.”

The United Nations is reassessing its own presence in Iraq in light of the major bombing that killed a number of its representatives several weeks ago; there was a second attack last week. It is now obvious that no country is willing to risk its troops in Iraq until the security is greatly improved.

The issue of monetary support is just as difficult a “sell”. The demand to fund the rebuilding of Iraq is being constantly met with the question, “What about the $200 billion Iraq currently owes?”

Without addressing that question, President Bush will not be successful in obtaining new financial commitments from either Eastern or Western nations. The Paris Club, a group of governments from major industrialized countries that work with debtor countries, loaning monies and restructuring debts and repayments, estimated that Iraq owed in 1990 at least 26 billion euro to its members. That was without reparations or unpaid interest.

The cost of Iraq’s unsuccessful war against Iran resulted in economic losses of at least $100 billion. Iraq’s seizure of Kuwait in 1990 and the resulting international economic sanctions crippled its economy.

When in December 1999, the UN Security Council finally authorized Iraq to export as much of its oil as was needed for humanitarian needs, 28 percent of its export revenues was deducted to meet the UN Compensation Fund and UN administrative expenses.

The net result is that Iraq was $200 billion in debt prior to the US invasion.

The Bush administration has requested more than $166 billion this year alone and still, by all estimates, it will end up costing hundreds of billions of dollars to rebuild Iraq. If other nations do not step to the plate and help resolve both the current and past financial issues in Iraq, it will fall to the American taxpayer as the last and final resort.

It is for this reason that Paul Bremer tried to convince the US Senate Appropriations Committee that the $87 billion the administration is currently asking for is justified. Interesting enough, the committee members did not take exception to the three quarters of that amount designated for the occupation costs in Iraq; but they are asking for an explanation regarding the remaining $20.3 billion.

Bremer presented a breakdown that included $2 billion to rebuild the Iraqi Army, $100 million for housing, $697 million to improve the sewer system and $400 million for two new prisons.

Yet the crux of his argument was to state that this money represented the same “grandeur of vision” that was demonstrated by the US in rebuilding Europe after World War II: It was the new Marshall Plan.

The comparison was poorly chosen. The Marshall Plan cost America $13.3 billion, but it was a program for reconstruction that was designed by the European nations themselves. It included a huge geographic area, all of Europe with the exception of Spain, East Germany and the Soviet Union and areas under its power.

It was the ultimate in joint participation both economically and socially. Iraq, in its current condition, is exactly the opposite. The only solution that will work in the long term is for the countries that are owed outstanding debts by Iraq, including members of the Paris Club, to agree to work out a comprehensive and fair program to reduce, reschedule and cancel some of it. According to Paris Club Secretary Dolphin D’Amarzit, this is very possible.

The condition he has stated is this: “We’ll have to have an Iraqi administration in front of us. Relief could include full write-offs, partial write-offs and debt rescheduling”. It would appear, therefore, that no one and no country wants to deal with the US exclusively on the issue of Iraq.

Neither the security nor the monetary issues can move forward without, at the very least, a joint body of the US and a secure Iraqi governing body.

This leaves the United States in the difficult position of continuing to support the dual role of occupier and administrator of Iraq until such time as it becomes stable enough to conduct democratic elections and produce a recognized government. In the meantime, the cost in American lives and taxpayers’ dollars is rising, and it would appear that it would be the American citizen who will end up paying these very real costs.

— Adrienne McPhail is an American journalist located in Riyadh.