SHUNEH, Jordan, 23 June 2003 — The reconstruction of Iraq took center stage at the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting here, as the United States once again gave an assurance that US troops will leave Iraq once the country formed a national government.
US troops would not stay in Iraq “one more day after the Iraqis had succeeded in regaining security and stability and forming a government that would live in peace with its neighbors”, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said here yesterday. He would not say when he expected such an Iraqi authority to be formed.
But the talks generally focused on the reconstruction contracts and US Civil Administrator for Iraq Paul Bremer said he intended to reduce state subsidies, establish a social safety net, and start a new Iraqi Army within two weeks.
Bremer told a plenary session of the extraordinary meeting of the WEF that the “most immediate priority” of his administration remains the economy, given that 50 percent of Iraqis were already unemployed before the war and 60 percent depended on food rations to survive.
A “humane safety net” will accompany measures to create a free-market economy after three decades of a public-sector-driven economy and high military expenditures, he said.
Bremer, who was accompanied at the WEF meeting by former Iraqi Foreign Minister Adnan Pachachi and a host of businessmen, said the security situation in Baghdad was improving. Bremer conceded that “remnants of the regime” were engaged in “continued acts of violence and political sabotage acting with the same cruelty and disregard for the welfare of Iraq in their last days as they did in their first”.
More that 30,000 Iraqis, he added, have joined coalition combat forces to maintain order and subdue looters.
The chief administrator reiterated earlier pledges that a political council “to assist in the management of the Iraqi government” and representatives of all components of Iraqi society will be announced next month, and that a constitutional conference, run entirely by Iraqis, will be convened to draft a constitution.
Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa maintained, however, that an advisory council was “not enough”, noting that Iraq and its people needed a full-fledged interim government to decide on reconstruction.
“A government is a must,” Moussa told the plenary session.
Also the number of Iraqis employed under US-funded contracts to rebuild their country is set to increase, the head of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) said. “The Iraqi engineers ... are highly skilled people, they can make the systems work but they need resources,” USAID administrator Andrew Natsios told reporters.
“What we are going to do is reduce the level of people that have to be hired from outside and we will use the people from the ministries to implement a lot of the work,” he added.
Pachachi, meanwhile, stressed the ideal route for political reforms in Iraq would be through direct elections, but said that elections would be impossible without a constitution, election laws, and an updated and reliable census.
Pachachi said that considering the present situation, consultations for the formation of a constitutional conference and political council should be as extensive as possible. “We hope the political council will be established on the basis of a broad-based representation,” Pachachi said.
“We hope the UN Special Representative (Sergio Vieira de Mello) will participate actively in these consultations, because we want international involvement,” he said.
Vieira de Mello, who was in attendance, said the United Nations was ready through the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and other financial institutions and UN agencies to assist the social and economic reconstruction of the country.
Meanwhile, the WEF failed to trigger the usual anti-globalization protests as it entered its second day but it drew condemnation from Jordanian union leaders and academics.
As it concluded its first day of debates Saturday, Jordanian union leaders and academics met in Amman to denounce the forum and the choice of Jordan as a venue. “The choice of Jordan is not an innocent one and not taken because of its economic importance, but the result of its position between Iraq and occupied Palestine,” said a statement received by AFP.
The statement was signed by “the workshop of union members, academics and opponents to globalization and the Davos of the Dead Sea”. The WEF usually holds its annual meetings in the Swiss Alpine resort of Davos.
— Inputs from Agencies
