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Marines Try to Wean Iraq From US Pocketbook

Saddam-era budget network can't provide to expanded security forces

By Nick McMaster, Newser Staff

Posted Oct 9, 2008 1:11 PM CDT

(Newser) – As Iraq becomes safer, the Marines have focused on the next challenge: weaning the country’s security forces off US financial and logistical support, USA Today reports. To spur the independence of the nascent Iraqi police, the Marines now refuse to refuel their vehicles, and it's gotten the Iraqis' attention. "Things get real hard and they go, 'OK, we've got to fix this ourselves,'" says a Marine major general.

Iraq’s police have no system for storing or distributing fuel, forcing them to find workarounds ranging from more foot patrols to buying gas with IOUs. Though the Iraqi government will make $63 billion from oil this year, its budgeting system is a relic from the days of Saddam Hussein—designed, because of UN sanctions, to hoard funds in central government. "They need to get a system in place so the money flows to the ministries, the provinces, and the local areas," says an economic coordinator in Baghdad.

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In this Sunday, April 8, 2007 file photo, a U.S. marine watches children play in Ramadi, in Iraq's Anbar province, 115 kilometers (70 miles) west of Baghdad. (AP Photo/Todd Pitman)

In this Feb. 23, 2008, photo, a U.S. Marine watches as a load of water is lifted by a Chinook helicopter the al-Asad Air Base in Iraq. (AP Photo/Eric Talmadge)

U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Christopher Davis, 35, from Johnstown, Pa., of Lightning Troop, 3rd Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, patrols with Iraqi police on the outskirts of Mosul, 360 kilometers (225... (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

US Marines of Golf Company 2 battalion, 7th Marines during a security patrol May 13, 2007 in the area known as Zaidon in the Al Anbar province near Fallujah, Iraq. (Getty Images)

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Marines Try to Wean Iraq From US Pocketbook