US officials Sunday underscored the "moral" duty of rebuilding war-battered Iraq as the first US Department of Commerce trade show and conference on Iraqi post-war reconstruction opened Sunday in Jordan.
Some 300 international exhibitors from 21 nations are taking part in the Outreach 2004 event by displaying their products at the Amman International Motor Show Centre, alongside a series of workshops and training sessions.
"Rebuilding Iraq is both an economic and moral imperative," US Assistant Secretary of Commerce William Lash told hundreds of delegates who packed the ballroom of a five-star hotel across town for the plenary session.
"Progress is being made. Things on the ground are moving very quickly (and) the future of Iraq is promising," said Lash, who also runs the Iraq Reconstruction Task Force of the Department of Commerce.
"We must build up the energy and the expertise of the regional business community. The time for acting is now," he told businessmen from the United States, Arab and European countries.
His comments were echoed by retired US admiral David Nash, who heads the Project Management Office of the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) running Iraq.
"This is a historic and momentous undertaking we are about to embark upon. It is complex but doable," Nash said.
Nash said his department will be in charge of managing 18.6 billion dollars earmarked by the United States to rebuild Iraq as well as executing a portion of it.
"One third of that amount is in non-construction, those are items such as the provision of equipment and training. The remaining two thirds will be applied to over 2,300 projects" he said.
"We will be in Iraq until the business is finished and we will simply move from the CPA on to whatever the successor organisation is," he said, referring to the end of June when the coalition expects to give power to the Iraqis.
Nash invited the delegates to sign up for "thousands of sub-contracts", warning however of strict guidelines to ensure "quality construction performed on time and within budget."
"There will also be a focus on preventing corruption at all levels to ensure that the former Baathist leaders do not benefit from our investments," he said.
April Foley, first vice president of the US export-import Bank, reported that her institution had pledged 500 million dollars to support Iraq's trade bank which opened for business in early December.