White House to withdraw funding for rebuilding Iraq
The US government is not planning to continue funding reconstruction projects in Iraq, in what appears to be a major climbdown from the White House's one-time pledge to build the best infrastructure in the region. According to officials cited in yesterday's Washington Post, the Bush administration will not be adding construction funds to the $18.4bn (£10.7bn) it has allocated since the 2003 invasion.It is a badly kept secret that reconstruction has gone badly. Essential services have been very slow in coming back on line and roughly half the money earmarked for reconstruction has been diverted into the military effort against the insurgency.The Lincoln Group - set up by Christian Bailey, an Oxford graduate - has been paying Sunni clerics for consultations on how to write pro-US propaganda that would persuade Sunnis to participate in elections and oppose the insurgency. The company received $100m from the US government to place the stories.
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