USAID: no plans to abandon Lebanon (and news on Iraqi reconstrution of schools)

The Daily Star ^ | April 30 2003 | Maha Al-Azar

[knighthawk]

But funding may suffer as Americans focus on Hizbullah, Iraq

The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has no plans to reduce aid to Lebanon, but funding levels may be impacted by the political considerations of a US administration increasingly critical of Hizbullah, keen to move ahead with the peace process and focused on Iraq.

USAID mission director Raouf Yussef told reporters during a briefing at the US Embassy in Awkar on Tuesday that Washington would not be using aid as a tool to pressure Lebanon and Syria to comply with its demands regarding Hizbullah and other regional issues.

The White House has stepped up pressure on the Lebanese and Syrian governments to rein in Hizbullah, as it prepares for the release of a “road map” for comprehensive peace in the region.

“The $35 million allocated to Lebanon in US aid goes directly to the Lebanese people and the USAID program is a humanitarian program that is not associated with politics,” Yussef said. “But the funds are approved as part of the US budget, which is subject to the considerations of the US government.”

Moreover, aid funneled to Iraq will take away from funds usually directed toward other countries in the region, he said.

Yussef, who had recently returned from a visit to Iraq, said that estimates tagging a reconstruction bill of $300 billion for Iraq are over-inflated.

“No one can tell exactly how much or how long the reconstruction period would take,” he said. “But the cost is more likely to be in the tens of billions of dollars.”

Destroying a house is very easy, he said, but rebuilding it is very difficult.

Even getting students back to school is not such a simple task, as it requires much more than operational classrooms, he said.

The entire curriculum should be overhauled, said Yussef, explaining that it was used as a tool to brainwash children with Saddam’s “glory.”

“Computers and the internet are also not available in Iraq’s schools, and we have to introduce them,” he said. USAID will initially repair 6,000 Iraqi schools.

Yussef said more than 70 percent of Iraqi school children do not own proper shoes, although Iraq is the second largest oil-producing country in the world, after Saudi Arabia.

In addition to the education sector, other areas that will be receiving priority aid are agriculture, water and health, rehabilitation of the infrastructure including airports and ports, and local authorities.

Although the US Congress has approved $2.4 billion in aid for Iraq, the funds that have already been allocated for the reconstruction process total $600 million from the United States and around $700 million from other countries, with the Britain topping the list with more than $300 million in aid. Other countries include Japan, Canada, Australia, the European Union, France, Germany and Korea.

Although Yussef acknowledged that all contracts would be granted to American companies as it is the “taxpayers’ money” that is funding the reconstruction process in the form of grants, he said it was still possible for all countries to land subcontracts through an “equal opportunity” tendering process.

Yussef said no country would be punished because of its political stance over the war on Iraq, as long as these countries do not support “terrorism,” like Libya, Syria and Iran.

France, Germany and Lebanon, all of which were critical of the US war effort, may have a shot at subcontracts, according to Yussef.

[knighthawk]

Ping