BAGHDAD, 12 December 2003 — Under intense global pressure, the Pentagon delayed a major Iraq reconstruction bidders’ conference but denied yesterday any link to the furor provoked by a ban on countries that opposed the war.
Invitations to bid on billions of dollars in business were being rewritten to align technical language, said a defense official, forcing an eight-day delay to the conference until Dec. 19.
Meanwhile, a car bomb exploded outside a US military base in Iraq yesterday, killing one and wounding 14 soldiers, as American troops uncovered a weapons cache north of Baghdad with enough ammunition to launch a spate of attacks.
The violence came as the United Nations joined European leaders in denouncing the US move to bar key American allies who opposed the Iraq war from sharing in contracts to rebuild Iraq.
President George W. Bush rejected the criticism, saying they would be reserved for countries that risked lives in Iraq.
A US Army spokeswoman said the car bomb attack occurred at an 82nd Airborne Division base near the flashpoint town of Ramadi, west of Baghdad. She said three Iraqis believed to be in the vehicle were also killed in the apparent suicide attack.
“The 82nd Airborne did sustain casualties,” the spokeswoman said.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said it was time to rebuild an international consensus to stabilize Iraq, and he joined European leaders in urging Washington to reverse its decision.
In an apparent effort to calm tempers, the White House said it was sending James Baker, a former secretary of state, to Europe next week to seek help in relieving Iraq’s crushing $125 billion debt.
But Bush has refused to back down.
“It’s very simple. Our people risked their lives. Friendly coalition folks risked their lives, and therefore the contracting is going to reflect that, and that’s what the US taxpayers expect,” Bush said.
In violence elsewhere, two journalists with Time magazine were wounded, one seriously, when a hand grenade was thrown at US forces they were accompanying on a patrol in Baghdad late on Wednesday, a US military official said.
In a blow to US efforts to transfer more of the burden to stabilizing the country to Iraqis, an official with the US-led administration said hundreds of recruits to the new Iraqi Army’s only battalion had quit, complaining of bad pay and conditions.
Iraq’s US governor Paul Bremer abolished the 400,000 strong-Iraqi Army in May.
“There are about 300 individuals out of a total of about 700 in the First Battalion of the Iraqi Army who have effectively resigned,” the official told reporters. US troops earlier yesterday seized three Iraqi men suspected of heading guerrilla cells in Saddam’s hometown of Tikrit and said they had uncovered a large weapons cache.
— With input from agencies
