US seeks funds to build prisons in Iraq

By Sue Pleming

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. State Department is winding
down its $20 billion reconstruction program in Iraq and the
only new rebuilding money in its latest budget request is for
prisons, officials said on Tuesday.

State Department Iraq coordinator James Jeffrey told
reporters he was asking Congress for $100 million for prisons
but no other big building projects were in the pipeline for the
department’s 2006 supplemental and 2007 budget requests for
Iraq, which total just over $4 billion.

“This is the one bit of construction we will be doing —
$100 million for additional bed capacity for the Iraqi legal
system,” he said.

Eventually, the Iraqis would take more detainees now in
U.S. custody and more space was needed, Jeffrey said, adding
that money would also be set aside to increase the number of
prosecutors and “corrections advisers.”

“We have another program to continue support, protection
and hardening of facilities and such for the judges who are
exposing their lives,” he said.

Experts on Iraq reconstruction said it was notable that the
only new rebuilding money was for prisons after the public
relations disaster caused by the eruption of the scandal at Abu
Ghraib prison where U.S. forces abused Iraqi inmates.

“For a country like the United States that is promoting the
advancement of freedom, building jails is not necessarily your
best image,” said Rick Barton of the Center for Strategic and
International Studies.

The initial goal of the U.S. rebuilding program was to
improve the lives of Iraqis by fixing the country’s dilapidated
infrastructure and polish America’s image at the same time.

WRAPPING UP

Barton said the budget requests were in line with U.S.
efforts to wrap up existing projects, many of which have not
reached their targets, and to use remaining funds to help
Iraqis sustain that work rather than launch new projects.

Congress has so far allocated just over $20 billion for
Iraqi reconstruction in a program that put much of its early
focus on giant electricity and water projects. Many of those
were later scaled back and funds diverted to training Iraq’s
security forces to tackle the insurgency.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was grilled by Congress
this month over the rebuilding program in Iraq, where water,
sewer and electricity services are worse than they were before
the U.S. invasion despite the billions of dollars the United
States has poured into those sectors.

The Bush administration came under heavy criticism for
handing out giant contracts to U.S. firms with close government
ties like oil services company Halliburton, which was once run
by Vice President Dick Cheney.

With the insurgency curbing rebuilding and funds being
redirected to bolster Iraq’s security forces, many of these
contracts have not produced value for money.

James Kunder, a senior official at the U.S. Agency for
International Development, said the focus would now be on
“capacity building” and helping Iraqis sustain these projects.

Among other budget requests was $287 million to improve
security for Iraq’s oil and electricity sectors, which involved
burying pipelines, putting up fences and watchtowers and
training guards, said Jeffrey.