Lawmakers seek to overhaul postwar reconstruction efforts

With the prospects of U.S. soldiers languishing in Iraq for years and reconstruction costs mounting, some lawmakers are calling for better planning of future U.S. intervention abroad.

"By having the best military in the world, we have made a full commitment to winning wars," said Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C. "Now it is time to make sure that we are capable of winning the peace."

The Democratic presidential candidate has introduced a bill (S. 1235) along with Sens. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and Jack Reed, D-R.I., aimed at doing that. On the House side, Rep. Sam Farr, D-Calif., is sponsoring similar legislation (H.R. 2616) with Reps. Jim Leach, R-Iowa, Joseph Hoeffel, D-Pa., Frank Wolf, R-Va. and Robert Wexler, D-Fla.

Both bills are based on recommendations from the bipartisan Commission on Post-Conflict Reconstruction, convened by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Association of the U.S. Army. Edwards, Farr, Roberts and Reed served on the commission. CSIS President John Hamre will be testifying Wednesday at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Iraq reconstruction.

House International Relations Committee Chairman Henry Hyde, R-Ill., is also working on his own bill that could be marked up as early as this week, a spokesman said, but declined to provide details because discussions are ongoing.

The Iraq reconstruction efforts are just the latest in a string of U.S. occupations aimed at helping rebuild war-ravaged countries and transforming them into democracies. In the last several years, U.S. troops have been involved in Afghanistan, Kosovo and Bosnia.

"As Afghanistan and Iraq both demonstrate, the United States needs better balanced tools for post-conflict security and reconstruction, with much heavier investment in civilian capacity," said Victoria Holt and William Durch, co-directors of the Future of Peace Operations Project at the Henry L. Stimson Center.

The Edwards bill calls for appointing a reconstruction director in countries that the United States is helping recover from armed conflicts. It would also create an Office of International Emergency Management within the U.S. Agency for International Development, able to quickly mobilize reconstruction experts to postwar assignments. A separate State Department center would be established to train reconstruction workers and provide coordination. And the measure calls on NATO to develop a standing international security force to help local police restore order and provide security.

"This bipartisan legislation addresses major shortcomings in the way our government handles the challenge of postwar reconstruction," former United Nations Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, who served on the commission, said in a statement last month. "It is critically important and could not have come at a more urgent moment."

The measure may be attached to the State Department authorization bill, which could come up again before lawmakers leave for the August recess, said an Edwards spokesman.

An attempt last week to attach Farr's bill to the House version of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act failed when the Rules Committee considered the amendment out of order. During the floor debate however, House International Relations ranking member Tom Lantos, D-Calif., commended Farr's efforts.

"In today's world, we are continually faced with humanitarian disasters, wars and other crises, and enhancing our capability in providing reconstruction assistance in times of such crises is a vital and necessary goal that we must achieve," Lantos said.

While Farr's bill is similar to the Senate version, it also includes several unique provisions-such as $300 million to cover emergencies and U.S. contributions to multilateral post-conflict operations and recommendations for a reserve police force willing to help with reconstruction.

The bill "will end the ad hoc approach in a post-conflict environment, which we have seen does not lead to regional stability, economic development or lasting democratic institutions," Farr said last month when introducing the measure. "We need to establish a working framework for post-conflict reconstruction, and this bill would do just that."

While so far, there has been scant vocal opposition to the bills, privately some voice concerns that the measures could signal an acceptance of U.S. involvement in reconstruction efforts and perhaps encourage the escalation of such efforts.

But as Chester Crocker, former assistant secretary of state for African affairs, observed, "Unless the United States decides to equip itself to win the peace, we will be chasing bad guys around rough neighborhoods for the rest of this century and have little to show for it."