The UN, US and Iraq IV

U.S. sees Iraq oil fund watchdog approval this week

BAGHDAD, Oct. 21 — An agreement creating a watchdog board to oversee how Washington spends Iraq's oil money is expected to get final approval in a day or two, the U.S. administration in Iraq said on Tuesday.
An agreement creating the board would end months of talks between the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) running Iraq and international agencies.
The deal would come with a two-day international conference for donors to contribute to the rebuilding of Iraq set to start in Madrid on Thursday.
''We expect these terms of agreement to be signed in the next day or two,'' Charles Heatly, a CPA spokesman, told a news conference.
''We are totally committed to transparency and accountability. We are very pleased with the final agreement that has been reached,'' he said.
The watchdog, the International Advisory and Monitoring Board, would look after the U.S.-run Development Fund for Iraq, which will hold Iraq's oil revenues.
The U.N. Security Council approved its creation in May to watch over how oil money and other Iraqi funds were used by the U.S. administration in the absence of an Iraqi government.
The council named the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the United Nations to the board seats. They had held talks with Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator for Iraq, about the board's powers.
Heatly said the parties had reached agreement about the board's powers last week.

Reuters, via MSNBC

... US officials also have told Congress they are working to improve oil revenue transparency.
Dave Oliver, CPA chief financial officer, told the House Armed Service Committee that every contract and expenditure that CPA Administrator L. Paul Bremer has approved is now available on the CPA's web site at www.cpa-iraq.org.
"I'm trying to make this as transparent as possible," said Oliver. "And it wasn't as good at the beginning because I got involved in just doing too much and not recognizing how important that was" ...
From Oil and Gas Journal 10/22/'03

(AFX-Focus) 2003-10-23 16:02 GMT: BREAKING NEWS

Iraqi majority view US as occupation force - poll
BAGHDAD (AFX) - An increasing number of Iraqis view the US forces as "occupiers" not liberators and say they want an Islamic-style democracy, citing Iran as a model, according to a new poll released today.
The results found 67 pct of Iraqis view the US-led coalition as an occupying force, while only 46 pct of the population considered them as such when US troops rolled into Baghdad on April 9, said the Iraqi Centre for Research and Strategic Studies.

Over the same timeframe, those who viewed the US forces as liberators slumped from 43 pct to 15 pct, the study said.

Asked about a future Iraqi government, 33 pct said they favour an Islamic model, as opposed to 30 pct who said yes to a Western-style democracy.

newsdesk@afxnews.com

lr/np/ims/

So far, Japan has pledged $1.5 billion for 2004; South Korea has agreed to $200 million, and Canada, $150 million. The World Bank has said it will lend Iraq $3 billion to $5 billion over the coming five years.

Spain pledged $300 million through 2007 and Britain $439 million for 2004-2005. An Italian foreign ministry official said Rome would give around $174 million over the next three years. All three governments were firm supporters of the U.S.-led invasion.

Smaller pledges came Thursday from Sweden, Belgium and the Philippines.
The European Union's head office has limited its contribution to one year, promising $233 million.

Sorta funny ... the folks who were raggin' that "Nobody's helping" now grab for the "Maybe they don't mean it" straw.

Under pressure from potential donors, the Bush administration will allow a new agency to determine how to spend billions of dollars in reconstruction assistance for Iraq, administration and international aid officials say.

The new agency, to be independent of the American occupation, will be run by the World Bank and the United Nations. They are to announce the change at a donor conference in Madrid later this week.

The change effectively establishes some of the international control over Iraq that the United States opposed in the drafting of the United Nations Security Council resolution that passed on Thursday. [..]

[D]iplomats say other countries were unwilling to make donations because they saw the United States as an occupying power controlling Iraq's reconstruction and self-rule. [..] European countries, [..] a World Bank official said [..] "want their own say over how the money is spent." [..]

[T]he previously set up entity, the Development Fund for Iraq, which is run by the occupation administrators and the Iraqis [..] has given big contracts to American companies like Halliburton and Bechtel.

But the new agency could open up that process and award contracts through bidding practices open to global companies. Donors could also give directly to Iraq, specifying that their own companies do the work. [..]

In June, when plans for Madrid got started, World Bank and United Nations officials said donors began pressing for an agency outside the control of the occupation.

At first, the Defense Department, which runs the occupation, resisted handing over financial control of Iraq's rebuilding. [..] The administration changed its mind in recent weeks, in part because of the support of Mr. Bremer.

"We had to act because the international community was stonewalling us on aid," said an administration official. According to the official, Mr. Bremer said, "I need the money so bad we have to move off our principled opposition to the international community being in charge." [..]

[...]
EUROPEAN UNION - The European Commission's offer of 200 million euros for 2004 has been criticised by EU lawmakers as too little, but Chris Patten, the European Union's external relations commissioner, said EU reconstruction and humanitarian assistance to Iraq added together totalled over 1.4 billion euros.
BRITAIN - Britain will contribute 296 million pounds for the period up to March 2006 (29 million pounds of which is its share of currently proposed EU spending). That will bring a total financial commitment towards Iraq's reconstruction of 544 million pounds for the three years from April 2003, including the funding provided so far.
GERMANY - A German Foreign Ministry spokesman said Berlin is giving more than 100 million euros to Iraq, about 50 million of that through the EU.
SWEDEN - Sweden, normally a major aid donor, said it would offer only humanitarian assistance until there was either a sovereign Iraqi government or U.N. authority overseeing reconstruction.
[...]

IILZ, research the difference between Chapter VI resolutions, under which all of the resolutions pertaining to Israel fall, and Chapter VII Resolutions, under which the pertinent resolutions in the Iraq matter fall. There is no basis for enforcement of Chapter VII resolutions; they call on the parties to a dispute to negotiate. No negotiation is provided under Chapter VII resolutions; they are demands for compliance on the pain of sanction up to and explicitly including armed intervention.

I make no claim of trying to defend the best interests of the UN; the US did nothing more than put its money where the UN's mouth was. I have no interest in the best interest of the UN. Apparently, neither does the UN.

It is the idea that America was taking some noble action by stepping in to correct the misguided UN that bugs me. We use the UN as a tool of our foriegn policy, that is all. In those rare instances that we are unable to control UN policy (ie- waging an unjustified war) we simply ignore them.