- BAGHDAD -- Britain has blocked
an American plan for a memorial museum in Baghdad to document the atrocities
of Saddam Hussein's regime.
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- US officials described the $10m (£5.4m) project
as a special commitment by Paul Bremer, the former US administrator of
occupied Iraq.
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- The money was to come from Iraqi oil revenues deposited
in the Development Fund for Iraq which was set up under UN sanctions and
maintained by the US after it toppled Saddam.
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- Britain, alongside Australia, which also took part in
last year's invasion, had voting rights on the fund's review board, as
well as officials from two Iraqi ministries.
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- The US withdrew its request when Australia's official
said that although he supported the museum idea it should be left to the
Iraqis to decide.
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- The US representative asked for the project to be approved
at the board's final meeting last month, shortly before the transfer of
sovereignty.
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- The aim was to collect ideas from all over Iraq on how
best to remember Saddam's victims and document his regime's crimes, and
also to seek private funding for a museum.
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- It is not clear why Mr Bremer tried to rush the idea
through rather than leave it to the incoming Iraqi regime. He may have
feared it might not get off the ground, or wanted to leave his personal
mark, analysts say.
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- The review board ended with the occupation. Iraqis now
control the development fund on their own.
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- Britain's representative, Dr Yusaf Samiullah, who heads
the Iraq office of the Department for International Development (Dfid),
said the project was not an emergency.
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- The British move was just one of several instances in
which Dfid either blocked or amended last-minute US attempts to spend Iraq's
oil money before the new government took office.
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- Dr Samiullah said yesterday: "We had two motivations.
It was a signal of our respect for sovereignty and our awareness the new
government would face unforeseen needs for which it would require money."
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- Britain rejected a US request for $41m at the same meeting
of the board, this time over a hazardous waste disposal facility consisting
of landfill, incineration and biodegradation, after the American official
conceded he did not know how much of the waste came from the occupation.
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- Australia's representative asked why Iraqis should pay
to "clean up coalition waste".
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- At meetings in May, Britain amended plans for a high-spending
victims' compensation fund for Iraqis who suffered under Saddam, as well
as a fund for claims arising over disputed property following the Arabisation
campaign which drove hundreds of thousands of Kurds out of their homes.
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- Britain approved the plan but had the draft changed so
that a taskforce would first study the complexities and stop money being
paid to victims until sovereignty was transferred.
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- Dr Samiullah said the two-month delay was insignificant
but gave political recognition to the new government.
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- "Also, after decades of persecution, you don't want
to rush to make the first payments and then find, a year later, that you
may feel you have underpaid or overpaid."
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- Britain took issue with two huge projects - a $500m plan
to build up Iraqi security forces and $315m for electricity investment.
It questioned whether Iraqi money was being spent to duplicate projects
covered by US aid grants and whether foreign companies could bid alongside
US ones.
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- Backed by Australia, Britain won US agreement that no
Iraqi oil money could be used to cover cost over-runs on security projects
that the US had awarded without competitive bidding. On electricity, Dr
Samiullah told the board that every single project had over-run its target
cost.
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- Asked if US officials were irritated by British objections,
Dr Samiullah said: "Professional development colleagues were relieved
that others were saying things that it would be difficult for them to say
in their system.
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- "Dfid's independence gives us a degree of authority.
US aid comes under the state department which may have its own political
objectives."
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- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2004 http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1262464,00.html
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