US offers Canada a carrot

2004-01-14 07:22

Monterrey, Mexico - President George W Bush, working to smooth relations with allies who opposed the Iraq war, reversed course and said Canada could bid for lucrative Iraqi reconstruction projects.

Three or four other countries also will be eligible, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Tuesday, but he declined to identify them. France, Germany and Russia have been furious that Bush excluded them from post-war contracts because they opposed the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

Bush announced his change of heart about Canada in his first meeting with new Prime Minister, Paul Martin.

"It actually does show that, working together, you can arrive at a reasonable solution," Martin said. US officials said Canada would be eligible to bid on roughly $4.5bn in reconstruction projects.

Later, presidential press secretary Scott McClellan said any country that, like Canada, had been excluded because of opposition to the Iraq war could now qualify if it had made a pledge toward Iraq's reconstruction at a donors' conference in Madrid, Spain, in October.

Canada made $225m pledge

Bush cited Canada's pledge of $225m toward Iraq's reconstruction - one of the largest at the conference - and its expressions of support for the US-led political efforts in Iraq as the reason it won a spot on the contracting list.

McClellan also held out the possibility for other nations, perhaps such as those that have agreed to forgive some of Iraq's massive foreign debt. That category would include France, Germany and Russia, none of which made contributions in Madrid.

It was Bush's second fence-mending session at the Summit of the Americas, a gathering of 34 leaders from throughout the hemisphere. On Monday, Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox put aside two years of differences and rallied behind a new US proposal to grant legal status to millions of undocumented workers.

US relations with Canada were strained when Martin's predecessor, Jean Chretien, stood with France, Germany and Russia in refusing to join the United States in the war on Iraq.

Martin served as Chretien's finance minister for nine years, and backed Chretien's decision to abstain from the fighting in Iraq.

Deep chill

Bush, asked whether the change in leadership could thaw US-Canada relations, said: "That assumes there was a freeze. And I didn't feel there was."

Yet events since Bush took office in 2001 had sent the relationship into a deep chill.

Deeply angered by the Canadian stance on the Iraq war, Bush cancelled a trip to Ottawa planned for last May.

Relations had begun deteriorating earlier, when a US bombing accident in Afghanistan in 2002 killed four of Canada's soldiers and injured eight more.

Gordon Giffin, the US ambassador to Canada from 1997 until May 2001, called the Iraq-contracts announcement "an enormous positive step forward."

"It's a demonstration by the administration that they're interested in rejuvenating the historic close working relationship with Canada," he said.

- AP