US seeks funds to build prisons in Iraq
Reuters, Washington
The US State Department is winding down its $20 billion reconstruction program in Iraq and the only new rebuilding money in its latest budget request is for prisons, officials said on Tuesday.State Department Iraq coordinator James Jeffrey told reporters he was asking Congress for $100 million for prisons but no other big building projects were in the pipeline for the department's 2006 supplemental and 2007 budget requests for Iraq, which total just over $4 billion. "This is the one bit of construction we will be doing -- $100 million for additional bed capacity for the Iraqi legal system," he said. Eventually, the Iraqis would take more detainees now in US custody and more space was needed, Jeffrey said, adding that money would also be set aside to increase the number of prosecutors and "corrections advisers."
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