The chief of U.S. efforts to build stability in Iraq through reconstruction projects says a northern oil pipeline reopening next month may boost Iraq’s economy.
But Brig. Gen. William McCoy Jr., commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Iraq, said the raging insurgency there has slowed the reconstruction work he oversees.
McCoy was interviewed last week while visiting his wife in Pueblo.
Of the $18 billion the U.S. government has spent so far on projects from roads to electrical plants in Iraq, nearly 20 percent has gone to security contractors to protect workers. Originally, officials figured they’d spend about 9 percent on security.
Defense chiefs diverted another $5 billion to train Iraqi forces.
Yet McCoy said reconstruction – about 1,000 projects employing about 142,000 Iraqis who earn from $4.50 to $12 an hour – is leading to stability in all but four provinces.
“We weren’t successful in establishing a constitutionally elected government in Germany until 1956, and there was an insurgency, and we lost several thousand soldiers in Germany,” he said.
In Iraq, the U.S. military death toll reached 2,100 last week, The Associated Press reported. “I mourn for every one of (the U.S. troops) that died and every one of the Iraqis killed,” McCoy said. “But the fact is, we are making progress. We want peace in the Middle East. It’s going to happen.”
Iraqi oil exports, shipped mostly from Umm Qasr in southern Iraq, reached prewar levels of 2.1 billion barrels a day last week.
And “we are going to open up the northern pipeline leading toward Turkey within a month,” increasing exports and stimulating Iraq’s economy, McCoy said.
Congressional leaders have every right to question the war, McCoy said. “I understand the frustrations that Congress is having now.”
But U.S. support for upcoming parliamentary elections and hundreds of reconstruction projects, he said, has led to “enormous improvements.”
U.S. troops in Iraq now are focusing on security for the Dec. 15 elections, in which Iraqis are to choose representatives under a newly adopted constitution. McCoy said the vote could mark a turning point toward self-rule.
“Is that going to stop the violence? I don’t think so,” he said. “But it’s going to reduce it.”
If the election goes well, U.S. forces could be scaled back, with remaining troops shifting to four or five big bases around Iraq, he said.
“We will be able to remove ourselves to a large extent from being present in every town and city,” making it “easier for us to protect ourselves,” he said.
Then U.S. forces, he said, could “focus on al-Qaeda in Iraq. … That’s our true enemy.”
