U.S. plans to pay salaries of Iraqi officers, soldiers

The U.S. government intends to pay the salaries of two million or more Iraqi bureaucrats and soldiers to help stabilise Iraq after the fall of President Saddam Hussain, Pentagon officials said Tuesday in revealing new details of a broad strategy to occupy and rebuild the country.

Soldiers in Iraq's regular army would be paid for construction work and such tasks as clearing rubble and land mines, officials said. Teachers, police officers, hospital staff and other government workers would collect salaries for delivering a measure of normalcy in the early months after a possible U.S.-led invasion.

The U.S. plans cover the first stages of an ambitious Bush administration effort to replace Saddam's dictatorship with a representative government open to the West.

The designs contemplate Americans overseeing all sectors of Iraq's government at first, guided in part by Iraqis who fled the country and now live in exile, the officials said.

At least 100 Iraqi expatriates are being hired on several-month contracts to work in Baghdad ministries or travel to their home provinces to coordinate early rebuilding efforts, said a senior Pentagon official who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity. A chief advantage they will have, the official said, is their recent experience in democratic countries.

The officials declined to disclose cost estimates, in keeping with the Bush administration's practice when discussing the prospective war and its aftermath. Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld told reporters Tuesday that money could come from frozen Iraqi government assets and foreign donor nations.

At a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing Tuesday, an outside expert suggested that post-war stability and reconstruction efforts could easily cost $20 billion during the first year alone if 75,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Iraq.

Eric Schwartz, a Clinton administration humanitarian aid specialist, called it "unrealistic" to count on Iraqi oil revenue to cover the rebuilding costs.

Senators from both parties worried aloud that the administration has not devoted as much attention to post-conflict peacemaking as it has to war plans.

Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar, and Sen. Christopher Dodd, expressed frustration that the Pentagon declined the committee's request to produce retired Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, coordinator of the new office of reconstruction and humanitarian assistance, or one of his deputies.

The senators' spirits did not improve when Lugar read a note during the hearing announcing that the Pentagon officials were briefing reporters on reconstruction plans at the same time Garner had been invited to testify. A Senate staff member said the Pentagon called the committee during the hearing to say the briefing was underway.

"I'm terribly concerned that we are not as far along as we should be at this juncture, considering that we may just be days away from military action," Dodd said.

"But, frankly, none of us really knows because the administration, unfortunately, has been extremely vague. The time has come for the administration to be fully candid with all of us, and to listen to what we and others have to say about its plans and timetable for action."

Preparations for a potential humanitarian crisis are "inadequate," Sandra Mitchell of the International Rescue Committee testified. She said the U.S. government would be required to accept responsibility for caring for Iraqis as an occupying power under the Geneva Convention.

The administration should provide better access and contribute more money to non-governmental groups, she said.

Planners across the Bush administration have developed stacks of proposals for post-war relief and reconstruction in Iraq, a beleaguered country of 23 million people fractured along ethnic and religious lines.

To run the project, Bush named the Defence Department, which in recent weeks has been racing to assemble military and civilian networks designed to interlock.

Nearly 200 people now report to Garner, some of them already in the Gulf region. He and his staff intend to move to Iraq if Bush declares war. If Saddam is toppled, the U.S. military expects to run Iraq until it is stable. The senior Pentagon official said, "I'll probably come back to hate this answer, but I'm talking months."

Garner will report to Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of U.S. military forces in the region. Among his other duties, he would oversee three American civilians who would coordinate relief and reconstruction operations in each of three parts of Iraq.

One of those figures is expected to be Barbara Bodine, a former U.S. ambassador to Yemen, sources said.

The involvement of the United States and its coalition partners in day-to-day Iraqi life will vary according to conditions, one Pentagon official said Tuesday. "Some places will continue to operate well," he said. "Other places will be a basket case."