The United States, as the main occupying power, is becoming more and more anxious to share the burden in Iraq. An average of one American soldier has been killed every day since the official end of hostilities, and the US treasury is forking out $1 billion a week of taxpayers’ money on military costs alone, from an already over-stretched economy. President George Bush has now asked Congress for $87 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan.
Potential contributors – of soldiers, civilian personnel and finance – are wary of entering a situation that would not give them commensurate decision- making authority, nor grant the UN significantly more power, particularly as many of them were against the war in the first place.
