Straight bribery
Bush Seeks $400 Million to Reward Allies
- By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, February 9, 2005
(02-09) 21:31 PST WASHINGTON, (AP) --
President Bush is asking Congress to set up a $400 million fund to reward nations that have taken political and economic risks to join U.S.-led coalitions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The White House announced the fund, dubbed the "solidarity initiative," after Bush's meeting Wednesday with Aleksander Kwasniewski, the president of Poland, a nation that is to receive one-fourth of the money.
The $400 million request is part of the $80 billion supplemental war funding request Bush will send to Congress next week.
"Poland has been a fantastic ally because the president and the people of Poland love freedom," Bush said during his Oval Office meeting with Kwasniewski, a staunch ally in the Iraq war. "I know the people of your country must have been thrilled when the millions of people went to the polls" in Iraq.
Democratic Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., the ranking minority member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, says the fund is indicative of the administration's inability to attract more well-to-do nations to the coalition at the start of the conflict.
"It's kind of a shame," he said in a telephone interview. "The reason we're having to do this is that we never reached out to those who have the ability and capacity to do this to begin with."
He called the countries in the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq "courageous" but said the administration had no choice but to offer them help because their societies and national budgets can't afford the cost of being in Iraq for extended periods of time.
