"Delegates from the world’s richest governments are gathering in Madrid to decide how
much or how little they are prepared to donate towards the reconstruction of a shattered
Iraq. Clearly, more than six months after US President George W Bush declared major
hostilities in Iraq to be over, there is still a huge job to be done – the situation for many of
the country’s poorest people has become worse rather than better over the period.
Violence and instability still plague the country, with daily reports of military and civilian
casualties. This very insecurity has meant that implementation of the much boasted, and
hoped for, reconstruction plans has barely begun.
Hospitals still lack medicines and basic equipment, clean drinking water is not available
in many areas, and raw sewage can be seen on the streets of many towns. Christian Aid
works with local organisations in many parts of Iraq and the message from them is clear.
‘In general, almost everyone involved in the reconstruction of Iraq has not been effective
– despite the passing of six months and the expenditure of large sums of money,’ says
the director of one of Christian Aid’s partner agencies, working in the south of the
country.
So, with the humanitarian situation still critical, there are plenty of immediate needs on
which money from international donors can be spent. As this report demonstrates, the
widespread assumption that reconstruction could be paid for entirely by Iraqi oil money is
a false one. Due, not least, to continuing insecurity, Iraq just does not produce enough
oil to pay for even immediate needs and is unlikely to do so in the near future.
What this report most shockingly reveals, however, is that the billions of dollars of oil
money that has already been transferred to the US-controlled Coalition Provisional
Authority (CPA) has effectively disappeared into a financial black hole. For all the talk of
freedom and democracy for the Iraqi people – before, during and after the war which
toppled Saddam Hussein – there is no way of knowing how the vast majority of this
money has been spent.
This situation is in direct violation of the UN resolution that allowed Iraqi assets to be
transferred to the CPA. Indeed, the body that is supposed to oversee how Iraq’s assets
are used has not even been set up yet.
Just as disturbingly, if this lack of transparency is perpetuated it could well hold the
seeds for future disaster in Iraq. The very oil revenues that are potentially the country’s
greatest asset could, on all available evidence, prove to be a curse."
-http://www.christianaid.org.uk/indepth/310iraqoil/iraqoil.pdf
