Links
US wants Iraq to pay bill for war victims
Off a dusty street flanked by piles of rubble and bombed-out car skeletons, the Saleh family is rebuilding their home with American aid money they got because three family members were accidentally killed in crossfire between U.S. forces and insurgents.
The aid for this family and hundreds of others like it came from a special fund earmarked by Congress for innocent civilians killed in U.S. military operations in Iraq. But recently, members of Congress asked the U.S. Agency for International Development in Baghdad, which manages the fund, to explore having Iraq take over financing and management of the project.
In Ramadi, the Sunni Muslim province's capital located about 70 miles west of Baghdad, the idea of putting Iraqis in charge of aid to victims worries both victims and the aid workers trying to help them.
"They are not going to reach the right people, the most needy people," said Eman Kadhum, the Anbar program manager for CHF International, the organization that distributes the USAID money in the province. "Poor people are going to remain, as always, the victims. No one will help them."
If Iraqi authorities and aid groups take over the aid process, "most of them will just take the money," she warned, noting that Iraq was ranked as the fifth-most corrupt country in the world by the watchdog group Transparency International.