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Iraq's rebuilding planned at nearly $120 billion

(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-07-30 17:21

WASHINGTON -- Iraq's coffers are bulging with oil money, yet some Baghdad residents go without electricity for much of the day and others get drinking water tainted with sewage.

In this July 8, 2006 file photo, local Iraqi boys try to redirect potable water off a break in a city water main in Baghdad, Iraq. [Agencies]

"They don't need more money," said Stuart Bowen, special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. "But they are having a difficult time, apparently, spending the money that they have."

Bowen Wednesday is releasing his quarterly report to Congress on efforts to rebuild Iraq's shattered nation -- a program now expected to spend $117.79 billion.

Aided by money from a postwar record in oil production, Baghdad itself is now set to spend an amount almost equal to the US share, the report says. That is, as of the end of the quarter on June 30 the US has appropriated $50.46 billion, the Iraqis are contributing $50.33 billion and international donors have pledged $17 billion.

Bowen said that on a number of fronts, Iraq made progress in the last quarter toward standing on its own -- a key to bringing home US troops.

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