With House Poised to Spend $163 Billion, More Argue Iraq Should Use Oil Money to Pay for Reconstruction

WASHINGTON, May 7 (IPS) - Growing impatience in Congress over the enormous costs being racked up by the Iraq war, as well as the Pentagon's belief that it needs more troops in Afghanistan to fight insurgents there, is putting the vaunted success of the George W. Bush administration's "surge" strategy to the test.

Although the House of Representatives appears poised to approve an additional $163 billion Thursday for military operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan through the end of the year, most observers believe that Congress will impose unprecedented conditions on Iraq-related spending. This could include requirements that the Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki pay substantially more in reconstruction and related costs than it has to date.

The argument that Baghdad must bear more of the burden gained momentum last week when the Pentagon's Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction reported that Iraq's oil revenue in 2008 should exceed $70 billion, twice as much as had been forecast just a few months before.

That report, which comes amid growing concern here over the weak domestic economy, has fueled efforts by a bipartisan group of senators to halt virtually all U.S. funding for major reconstruction and infrastructure projects in Iraq.

Indeed, the Senate Armed Services Committee voted unanimously last week to approve a bill that would ban the Pentagon from funding any reconstruction or infrastructure project in Iraq that costs more than two million dollars. Similar legislation is expected to be taken up by the House.

"This is the first significant bipartisan change in our policy toward Iraq," declared Republican Sen. Susan Collins, one of the sponsors of the legislation after last week's vote, while the committee chairman, Sen. Carl Levin said Iraq's failure to pay reconstruction costs was "unconscionable (and) inexcusable" given the windfall it has received from the stunning rise in world oil prices.

Another provision of the same bill would require Iraq's government to pay the salaries and training costs of the predominantly Sunni militias, or so-called "sahwa" or "Awakening" councils, on which the U.S. has been spending roughly $27 million a month.

Despite U.S. pressure, the al-Maliki government has strongly resisted integrating the vast majority of the estimated 90,000 members of these militias -- most of which were previously part of the Sunni insurgency -- into the army or police for fear that they will eventually turn their guns on the regime.

The result has been growing frustration on the part of the militias, frustration that reportedly was significantly enhanced last month after al-Maliki enlisted thousands of members of the Badr Organization into the government's security forces during fighting with Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army in Basra and Sadr City in Baghdad. The Badr Organization is the armed wing of the Shi'a Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC), the strongest party in the coalition.

Both the intra-Shi'a conflict between the Sadrists and the government and the growing anger of the sahwa militias -- most recently dramatized by a series of strikes and public protests and by an increasing number of attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces in al-Anbar province and other Sunni strongholds where the militias have kept the peace for most of the past year -- have resulted in a sharp rise in both Iraqi and U.S. casualties over the past two months, threatening the security gains made by the surge.

The surge, which was initiated in February 2007, was aimed at pacifying both al-Anbar province and the capital by adding some 30,000 U.S. troops to the 140,000 already deployed to Iraq to stop and reverse the drift to sectarian civil war between Sunnis and the various Shi'a militias. Its strategic aim was to foster a climate of peace and stability that would encourage all factions to make the political compromises necessary for national reconciliation.