[标准VOA] 石油收入投入重建计划(2)[080811]
Warner says it's time for Baghdad to use its revenue and surplus to fully assume responsibility for providing essential services instead of relying on American taxpayers who've been the overwhelming source of reconstruction funds so far.
In March of 2003, then-U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz estimated rebuilding costs in the tens of billions of dollars and told Congress that Iraq could finance its own reconstruction through oil revenue.
Acting State Department Spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos says it's wrong to conclude from the new GAO report that U.S. taxpayers alone are paying to rebuild Iraq.
"The truth is that we spent a lot of money after liberation to help the country get back on its feet, after years of dictatorship. The large-scale reconstruction-focussed assistance started winding down several years ago as Iraqi revenues and capabilities began to grow. Since last year, we've been focusing our aid not on capital projects but on capacity-building, helping to address many of the issues raised in the GAO report."
Parliament's passage of a $21 billion supplementary budget will reduce Iraq's overall surplus, some of which is earning millions of dollars in interest at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
