June 28, 2003	Saturday	Rabi-us-Sani 27,1424

WASHINGTON, June 27: The Pentagon has sent a group of private experts with extensive experience in the Clinton administration to assess postwar reconstruction efforts in Iraq amid stubborn instability and escalating attacks on US and British troops, officials said on Friday.

A US defense official said the five-person team will be in Iraq for up to 12 days in the role of “informal consultants to the US government, bringing extensive field experience, and offering a broad, objective perspective on Iraq reconstruction.”

The official said these experts will report to Paul Bremer, the US civil administrator in Iraq, and will brief Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on their observations.

“This team was not dispatched to go rescue Bremer because Bremer does not need rescuing. He is open to having assistance,” Lawrence Di Rita, special assistant to Rumsfeld, told reporters. He referred to the five experts as “a good group of smart people.”

The team includes five experts from three prominent organizations: the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies and New York-based Council on Foreign Relations think tanks, and the U.N. Foundation, a private grant-making group founded by media mogul Ted Turner.

Mark Schoeff, a spokesman for CSIS, said the experts departed on Thursday, and their task would be to “provide perspective” on the reconstruction efforts as informal advisers.

The CSIS experts are John Hamre, Frederick Barton and Bathsheba Crocker.

POST-WAR PROBLEMS: Hamre served as a senior Pentagon official during the Clinton administration and is president of the think tank. Barton formerly served as U.N. deputy high commissioner for refugees in Geneva and was an official with the US Agency for International Development. Crocker previously worked in the State Department.

The other two on the mission are Robert Orr of the Council on Foreign Relations, who served as a US official at the United Nations during the Clinton administration, and Johanna Mendelson Forman of the U.N. Foundation, a former USAID and World Bank official.

The Pentagon recruited these outside experts amid ongoing difficulties in postwar Iraq and criticism that the Bush administration was poorly prepared to handle the chore of rebuilding Iraq and guiding the creation of a new, representative Iraqi government.

Bremer, a veteran diplomat, has replaced Jay Garner, a retired general, as the top US civil administrator in Iraq.

American and British troops serving as an occupation force are facing mounting attacks. The Iraqi economy remains comatose, with unemployment at staggering levels, and the process of restoration of basic services is still ongoing in some parts of the country.

The instability in Iraq is proving problematic for potential private investment by American, British and other foreign companies.

Kroll Inc, a risk consulting company, issued a report to corporate clients this week saying the most likely scenarios for the rest of 2003 are either an Iraqi revolt against the occupying forces or a “wobbly landing” amid some instability but not outright revolt.

A Kroll official in London said the report judged that two other scenarios were less likely: a “soft landing” with a stable Iraq or the utter fragmentation of the country.—Reuters