The State Department hopes to shift $1.8 billion to security and law enforcement, $450 million to Iraqi oil production, $380 million to economic reforms, agriculture and private sector development, $286 million to short-term job creation projects, $180 million to prepare for elections scheduled for January, and $360 million toward forgiving long-standing Iraqi debt to the United States. Even with the shift, Grossman said "substantial money" would remain for improving water and electricity services.
Most of the transferred money would go toward training and equipping 45,000 more Iraqi police, 16,000 border patrol officials and 20 additional battalions of Iraqi national guardsmen.
 
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"If the shift of these funds slows down reconstruction, security may suffer in the long run," Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) says in a statement scheduled to be delivered today on Capitol Hill.
Rand Beers, a security adviser to the presidential campaign of Sen. John F. Kerry, was also critical. "Belatedly moving money from reconstruction to security is necessary but won't make up for the George Bush's massive failure to plan for the peace in Iraq," he said.
Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage will defend the request Sept. 24 at a House hearing.
Questions have emerged about what little reconstruction money has been spent. In an essay yesterday e-mailed to reporters and policy analysts, Cordesman charged that much of it "has been wasted due to sabotage, attacks, and bad planning; has been spent outside the country; or has been spent on foreign security forces."
The State Department wants additional funding for several security forces, including police, border patrols, the Iraqi National Guard, a Civil Intervention Force and an Iraqi Intervention Force. Congressional aides from both parties questioned how all those additional forces could be brought on quickly when training is already at capacity.
The administration also wants $450 million to expand oil production from Iraq's northern and southern oil fields, but congressional aides say production is more limited by insurgent attacks than by antiquated infrastructure.
"It's clear to me that the postwar planning thus far has been a failure. What I want to know is that this reshuffling the numbers can improve the situation, that they've finally come up with a plan that works," said Rep. Nita M. Lowey (N.Y.), the ranking Democrat on the foreign operations subcommittee. "Flexibility is necessary, but 'trial and error' is no way to prosecute a war and no way to win a peace," she said.
