Home pagePress CenterIn the Media Rick Barton, codirector of the CSIS Post-Conflict Reconstruction Project, was quoted by the New York Times, "Iraqi Figures Back U.S. View on Low Spending for Reconstruction."
In the Media | Detail
Rick Barton, codirector of the CSIS Post-Conflict Reconstruction Project, was quoted by the New York Times, "Iraqi Figures Back U.S. View on Low Spending for Reconstruction."
Internal budget figures provided for the first time by the Iraqi government suggest that it has spent as little as 18 percent of the money it has devoted to rebuilding the country this year, roughly in line with previous estimates by American oversight agencies, but far below the amount cited by the Iraqi government itself.
Iraq’s lagging spending on its own reconstruction has been the subject of widespread criticism as oil prices, the country’s main source of revenue, have skyrocketed and American expenditures on rebuilding the nation have mounted. [...]
Frederick D. Barton, a reconstruction expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, highlighted the challenge. “The government of Iraq,” he said, “essentially a rather newly formed government, is trying to spend more money than it ever had before when it was relatively established and a much simpler government to run, basically at one man’s whim.”
The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is a private, tax-exempt institution focusing on international public policy issues. Its research is nonpartisan and nonproprietary. CSIS does not take specific policy positions; accordingly, all views, positions, and conclusions expressed in these publications should be understood to be solely those of the authors.
