WASHINGTON, Aug 30 (AFP) - The United States may shift billions of dollars in aid to Iraq from medium- and long-range reconstruction programs to short-term security projects aimed at boosting security amid continued unrest that planners had not expected, US officials said Monday.
The shift, recommended by US ambassador to Iraq John Negroponte, would see 3.37 billion of the 18.4 billion dollars in US aid Congress approved for Iraq last November transferred from infrastructure and other projects to training and equipping more than 75,000 Iraqi national guard, police and border patrol officers, the officials said.
In addition, it would pump some 225 million dollars into Iraq's much sabotaged oil sector in an effort to enhance revenue to make up for the diverted US assistance by raising output from about 2.2 million barrels per day to three million, they said.
The recommendation, details of which were first reported by the Wall Street Journal on Monday, was submitted by Negroponte to Washington last week in a diplomatic cable which argued for the switch because of the unexpected poor state of security in Iraq.
"Recognizing that the security and political situations in Iraq are not the same as those envisaged" when the aid package was adopted last year, the US embassy in Baghdad "has conducted a major strategic review as to how to utilize" the assistance, Negroponte wrote in the cable.
Negroponte's proposal, which is to be discussed in Washington this week, calls for the creation of 20 new Iraqi national guard battalions of about 800 troops each, hiring 45,000 more police officers and 16,000 border guards while establishing 99 new border checkpoints, officials said.
Those plans alone would cost about 1.8 billion dollars, which had been earmarked for extensive and time-consuming water, electrical and sewerage projects, according to the officials.
On the civilian side, Negroponte wants the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to spend 236 million dollars to increase employment opportunities for Iraqis by promoting small-scale, civil-works projects, officials said.
The officials stressed that much of the money contained in the 18.4-billion-dollar aid package had not yet been spent due to instability, security concerns of contractors and bureaucratic delays.
And the officials noted that the embassy had come to the conclusion that quick "quality of life" projects -- especially improving security -- would best serve the interests of Iraqi reconstruction and stabilization as well as perhaps creating goodwill toward the United States more than one year after the US-led invasion.
"We think the Iraqis and us will both benefit from projects that produce speedy and tangible results," one official said.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher declined to comment on the specifics of the Wall Street Journal report or confirm the accounts offered by the officials, who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity.
But he acknowledged that Negroponte and his staff at the embassy in Baghdad had concluded a review of the Iraq assistance package and submitted recommendations on how best to spend the money in light of current conditions.
"They've done their on-the-ground assessment and come up with some recommendations on how to respond to the evolving situation and the evolving priorities," Boucher told reporters.
"We want to spend money on the major priorities, which are improving security, increasing Iraqi employment and improving quality of life for all Iraqis, and what the embassy is looking at is how they think the money can best be put to work to do that," he said.
Boucher and the other officials said that US lawmakers as well as Iraqi authorities would be consulted on any plans to adjust the focus of the assistance and that, in some cases, the switches would require Congressional approval.