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WASHINGTON, US - A SENATE panel has proposed banning US funds for all large-scale projects in Iraq above US$2 million (S$2.7 million), demanding Baghdad assume a larger share of reconstruction costs, lawmakers said on Thursday.
Senator Carl Levin, chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the panel unanimously adopted a budget for 2009 'prohibiting the Department of Defence to use any of its funds to pay for large-scale infrastructure projects in Iraq, and that is defined as a project which exceeds two million'.
The committee also called on President George W. Bush's administration to begin negotiating with Iraq on sharing the costs of joint US-Iraqi operations and to ensure Baghdad pays for training, equipping and sustaining Iraqi security forces, the Democratic senator said.
'Now, what has happened here is that the American taxpayers are paying for too many things here in Iraq that the Iraqis ought to pay for out of their surplus,' said Mr Levin, citing Baghdad's rising oil revenues.
'It is unconscionable, it is inexcusable, it makes no common sense for a country that has that kind of wealth and that kind of surplus in our banks and their banks to be sending us the tab or for us to pay the tab for the infrastructure and some of the training costs that we're now paying for,' Mr Levin told a press conference.
Facing a US economic downturn, lawmakers are increasingly voicing concern over the massive cost of the US military presence in Iraq.
Mr Levin on Tuesday welcomed a move by Defence Secretary Robert Gates to withdraw a budget request for US$171 million in funding for construction of police stations in Iraq after lawmakers criticized Baghdad's reliance on Washington funding.
The committee on Wednesday approved a defence budget for 2009 of US$542.5 billion requested by the Bush administration, not including US$70 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. -- AFP
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