DATE=9/22/03

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=CONGRESS / IRAQ (S)

NUMBER=2-307785

BYLINE=DEBORAH TATE

DATELINE=CAPITOL HILL

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: The top U-S official in Iraq has appealed to U-S lawmakers to approve President Bush's 87 billion dollar request for U-S operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Ambassador Paul Bremer made his comments to the Senate Appropriations Committee in what was the first a series of hearings this week into the package. Correspondent Deborah Tate reports.

TEXT: Most of the funding request is for Iraq, including 20 billion dollars for reconstruction, which Ambassador Bremer said is an urgent matter.

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Some Iraqis are beginning to regard us as occupiers, and not liberators. Some of this is inevitable, but faster progress on reconstruction will help.

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Ambassador Bremer warned Iraq could become a haven for terrorists if Congress does not provide the funds to help rebuild the country.

Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, the top Democrat on the committee, criticized the administration for failing to anticipate the mounting U-S casualties and the costs of the U-S-led occupation.

Ambassador Bremer later admitted that while the United States anticipated post-war resistance by loyalists to former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, the degree to which U-S troops were threatened by terrorists, as he put it, came as an unwelcome surprise. (Signed)

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