Baghdad, Oct 07: US Sen. Mitch Mcconnell, chairman of a key appropriations panel, said he would vote to spend some 600 million dollars to continue the so-far fruitless search for banned weapons in Iraq. The Kentucky Republican was leading a five-senator delegation on a two-day visit here to learn more about what the 20.3 billion dollars requested by the Bush administration would do to help rebuild postwar Iraq. For one thing, he said, the aid should be given as a grant, not as a loan burdening future Iraqi governments, as proposed by some in his party.
"If the United States were to make this in the form of a loan, it would confirm the worst suspicions of some of the elements still in Iraq who believe we came here for some other reason other than to liberate this country," that is, to draw off Iraqi oil revenues as loan repayments, McConnell told a news conference.
The 20.3 billion dollars requested for Iraqi reconstruction, including such items as 5.7 billion dollar for restoring Iraqi electricity, is part of an 87 billion dollar package for military and civilian operations in Iraq and Afghanistan submitted by the Bush administration for the 2004 fiscal year.
A secret, unpublished section of the package was reported last week to include more than dollar 600 million to continue the 6-month-old us search for weapons of mass destruction, whose alleged presence in Iraq was the key justification cited by the Bush administration for invading Iraq in March. Bureau Report