OSI Forum: Iraq's Reconstruction and the Road to Sovereignty

After 25 years in exile, Iraqi writer and scholar Isam al Khafaji returned to his native Baghdad in early 2003 as a member of the Iraqi Reconstruction and Development Council. But due to what he believed was the marginalized role of Iraqis in the reconstruction effort, he resigned in July 2003. Three months later al Khafaji became the Baghdad director of Iraq Revenue Watch, a new OSI initiative that monitors Iraq's oil revenues and reconstruction process to help ensure they are managed with firm standards of transparency, and that the benefits of national oil wealth flow to the Iraqi people.

Al Khafaji, who in January 2004 returned from Baghdad, offered a general overview of conditions in Iraq and discussed ongoing problems related to the transfer of power to the Iraqi people as well as the lack of transparency within the Coalition Provisional Authority's decisionmaking process. He also focused on how the Bush administration is currently awarding reconstruction contracts.