Iraq won an international award last year for its ports. It did not receive this award for possessing the most important or sophisticated ports in the region, but rather because it has achieved remarkable growth in this field.
Iraq is planning to open a special container port, which, according to port officials, will consist of two platforms and will specialize in receiving container ships. It will be opened during the next few months.
Yet Thomas Staal, the USAID Iraq mission director, expressed his surprise that "Iraqi officials did not acknowledge the amount of US assistance provided to Iraq to improve the performance of Iraqi ports."
In an interview with Al-Monitor at the US Embassy in Baghdad, Staal said that "there are vital projects that we funded and implemented using private American money." He added, "It is surprising that the Iraqi authorities have not mentioned this."
He continued, "We renovated the port of Umm Qasr and carried out a project to clean the shipping waters, removing sunken equipment that Saddam Hussein’s regime had left there."
Aziz al-Obeidi, the assistant general manager of the General Company for Ports of Iraq, said that "the US carried out small projects in the ports of Basra that provided our employees with expertise relating to maintenance, maritime safety and other issues."
Obeidi added, "We can't say that the Americans rehabilitated Iraq’s ports, but they did contribute to this. Iraq does not deny that."
He went on to say, "Not only did the US contribute to the ports, but they went on to build bridges and schools and rehabilitated facilities in the city of Basra in general."
However, he said, "US support was provided in 2004 and 2005, when the ports were under their control. After 2006, Iraq took control of managing the ports and US efforts decreased."
Omar al-Shaher is a contributor to Al-Monitor’s Iraq Pulse. His writing has appeared in a wide range of publications including France’s LeMonde, the Iraqi Alesbuyia magazine, Egypt’s Al-Ahaly and the Elaph website.
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