BAGHDAD, March 24 (UPI) -- Iraq's government is being urged to generate its own resources to rebuild the country instead of continuing to rely on U.S. help.
Daniel Speckhard, director of the U.S. Iraq Reconstruction Management Office, says the Iraqi government can no longer count on the United States which has already spent $21 billion on reconstruction, reports USA Today.
"The Iraqi government needs to build up its capability to do its own capital budget investment," Speckhard told reporters.
Iraq's deputy finance minister, Kamal Field al-Basri, agreed with the assessment in an interview with the newspaper, and said: "We should be very much dependent on ourselves."
But Anthony Cordesman at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies called the U.S. effort "a dismal failure" because it is leaving a legacy of half-built projects built to U.S. standards that Iraq doesn't have the capability to maintain.
Speckhard said reconstruction would cost from $70 billion and $100 billion -- up from the $60 billion World Bank estimate in 2003. He said Iraq must increase oil exports from 1.6 million barrels a day to 2 million barrels a day.
