Can Mosul rise from ashes?
Few want to pay for Iraq’s reconstruction after defeat of IS
MOSUL, Iraq — For nearly 2½ miles along the western bank of the Tigris River, hardly a single building is intact. The warren of narrow streets of Mosul’s Old City is a crumpled landscape of broken concrete and metal. Every acre is weighed down by more than 3,000 tons of rubble, much of it laced with explosives and unexploded ordnance.
It will take years to haul away the wreckage. The Iraqi military and U.S.led coalition succeeded in uprooting the Islamic State group across the country, but the cost of victory is nearly incalculable.
Three years of war devastated much of northern and western Iraq. Baghdad estimates $100 billion is needed nationwide to rebuild. Local leaders in Mosul, the biggest city held by IS, say that amount is needed to rehabilitate their city alone.
So far no one is offering to foot the bill. The Trump administration has told the Iraqis it won’t pay for a massive reconstruction. Iraq hopes Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries will step up, and Iran may also take a role. The U.N. is repairing some infrastructure in nearly two dozen towns and cities around Iraq, but funding for it is a fraction of what will be needed. As a result, much of the rebuilding that has happened has come from individuals using personal savings to salvage homes and shops as best they can.
“The responsibility to pay for reconstruction falls with the international community,” said Abdulsattar al-Habu, the director of Mosul municipality and reconstruction adviser to Nineveh province, where the city is located.
If Mosul is not rebuilt, he said, “it will result in the rebirth of terrorism.”
The enormity of the task ahead in Mosul can be grasped by what has — and hasn’t — happened in Ramadi, the capital of Iraq’s western Anbar province. Two years after it was retaken from IS, more than 70 percent of the city remains damaged or destroyed, according to the provincial council.
Nearly 8,300 homes — almost a third of the houses in the city — were destroyed or suffered major damage, according to UN Habitat. Threequarters of the schools remain out of commission.
The Anbar provincial council holds its meetings in a small building down the street from the pile of rubble that was once its offices. Nearly all of Ramadi’s government buildings were blown up by the militants.
The main engine for rebuilding has been the stabilization program run by the U.N. development agency, which focuses on rehabilitating infrastructure, including roads, water and electricity systems and schools, as well as some homes.
But funding is far lower than what Iraq says it needs. So far, stabilization has received some $392 million in contributions. The United States has given the lion’s share, some $115 million. Germany is the second biggest donor at $64 million. The United Arab Emirates and Kuwait are also contributing, but no other Gulf nations are among the list of donors.