"No pain, no gain," Andy Wylegala, whose job at the embassy is to help Americans do business in Iraq, said at the same briefing. "It's a very difficult procedure to pass through. But when I look from my side, I see it as a long-term, very favorable development."
After touring Baghdad early this month, Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) questioned the new direction.
"I think we're fooling ourselves if we think we can simply just pass this on to the Iraqi people immediately or to the international community," Reed said. "We've got to continue our efforts…. That requires money."
Iraq's new government will embrace market policies, but it still needs more help with reconstruction, said Movad Ubaidi, deputy chief of the newly elected National Assembly's economics committee.
"If these donations were spent, the American government is asked to give more so that Iraq can recover from the damage it suffered," Ubaidi said.
But the commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Iraq, Gen. William H. McCoy, said at a recent briefing that the last of 3,100 reconstruction projects would soon be awarded, and almost all would be completed before the year ends.
"We were never intending to rebuild Iraq," McCoy said. "We were providing enough funds to jump-start the reconstruction effort in this country."
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