Washington's aid for Lebanon under revision
Lebanon-USA, Politics, 10/1/2002

Well-informed American sources said that aid dedicated to Lebanon for the fiscal year 2002, have not yet been handed to organizations and establishments that spend this aid due to bureaucratic reasons and because the aid have been during the few past months under "revision" to make sure that it is spent in a way that "serves the American foreign police," according to US State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher.

However, the points of disagreement between Washington and Beirut, especially concerning the Hizbullah party and the question of al- Wazzani river water, were behind raising certain reservations and questions which led to making the revision.

Sources at the US Congress that support spending the aids in Lebanon quickly had expressed their concern for suspending the spending of these aids for such a long time, and raised this issue with the US Department of Sate and urged it to release the aid to the international agency for development. The US officials used to abstain from discussing reasons behind suspension of the aid and the reasons which led to "the revision."

The sources added that most of the aid, estimated at 32 million dollars, was handed to the "International Agency for Development " which belongs to the US Department of State which supervises the spending through non-governmental organizations, which in turn spend the money on economic and developmental projects.

The so far left sum of 3 million dollars will remain suspended because of objections by the Republican Senator Jesse Helms who asked for suspending this sum which was presumed to be spent on Lebanon to join the "World Trade Organization" because he is not pleased with the performance of the Lebanese economic policy.

Boucher said on Monday, commenting on a news issued by the Lebanese daily Assafir on suspending aids to Lebanon, that the American aids concentrate on creating economic opportunities and strengthening municipality activities, running water resources more effectively and strengthening democracy.

Previous Stories:
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