Iraq runs out of oil money, halts police expansion
BAGHDAD Ñ Iraq has suspended plans to expand the police due a sharp cut in its security budget.
Officials said the Iraqi Interior Ministry has frozen a program to
expand the National Police for counter-insurgency operations. They said the
ministry plan had called for the formation of a brigade in each of Iraq's 18
provinces.
"The budget has been cut so much in 2009 that we can barely afford to
sustain our current force, let alone expand it," an official said.
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Officials said the Interior Ministry has frozen hiring for the police
and security forces. In 2009, the ministry had planned to expand the
National Police as well as hire 67,000 additional police officers.
The drop in the price of crude oil has suspended plans for military and
security force expansion in 2009.
The suspension, implemented amid the
launch of a U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq, has resulted in a $5.3
billion budget for the Interior Ministry and $4.1 billion for the Defense
Ministry,
nearly half of planned spending.
"We're in a situation that the Iraqis have not had to face," Lt. Gen.
Frank Helmick, head of the U.S. advising team in Iraq, said. "They can't pay
for it, and we don't have the money to pay for it."
