IRAQ/US: The US government, which is spending $4 billion a month keeping its troops in Iraq, admitted yesterday that the cost had risen rapidly and that the price of reconstruction was "almost impossible to exaggerate".
In an interview with the Washington Post, the head of the occupation authority, Mr Paul Bremer, said that it would require a "huge undertaking and countless billions" to rebuild the country's infrastructure and economy.
It is estimated that it will cost $2 billion to meet the current demand for electricity and $16 billion to deliver drinking water.
Mr Ramiro Lopes da Silva, the interim head of the UN mission in Iraq, said that last week's attack on the UN headquarters in Baghdad had stalled the reconstruction of Iraq and would prolong the occupation.
Mr Lopes da Silva, who was appointed after Mr Sergio Vieira de Mello was killed in the suicide-bombing, said that lack of security would limit the UN's work and deter others from joining in the efforts to rebuild postwar Iraq.
"Even private contractors, companies that were intending to operate in Iraq, are now going to have to reassess the levels of threat before they take their next steps," he said.
Meanwhile, a military tribunal has begun hearing the case against four US army reservists who allegedly abused Iraqi prisoners of war by kicking and punching them in the groin, face and abdomen.
The four, who are attached to the 320 Military Police Battalion, were part of a unit taking a busload of captives to Camp Bucca in the port of Um Qasr, where prisoners of war are processed. The offences they may be charged with include assault, maltreatment of prisoners and dereliction of duty.
One prisoner is alleged to have had his nose broken and another his wrist injured. Others were allegedly held down while fellow-prisoners were encouraged to kick them. The soldiers claim that they acted in self-defence.
Elsewhere in Iraq, two US soldiers were killed in guerrilla attacks yesterday in Falluja and Baghdad.