US vows to take backseat in Libya rebuilding

In keeping with the back-seat role the US took in the military campaign to overthrow Col Gaddafi,Washington sees mainly an advisory capacity for itself in the new Libya.

“We’re going to be guided by what Libyans themselves think is appropriate,” Jeffrey Feltman,Washington’s top Middle East envoy,said on Wednesday when he visited the Libyan capital to highlight the US’s critical but behind-the-scenes support for the armed revolt that toppled the regime.

Feltman was the highest-ranking western official to publicly visit the Libyan capital since armed militias inspired by uprisings across the Arab world swept through the country and drove Col Gaddafi from power and into hiding.

“I am deeply moved to witness the efforts,courage and admirable resolve of the Libyan people paying off,as together they build a new and democratic Libya,” Feltman told reporters at a press conference,the newly resurrected tricoloured flag of Libya and that of the US standing side by side behind him.

But officials warned that Washington would play a dramatically different role in Libya than it had in other countries in the region.

“We’re not going to be engaged in nation building in the traditional sense of what we did in Afghanistan and Iraq,there are not going to be millions or billions of US taxpayer dollars going out there,” a senior administration official in Washington said.

Instead,Libya’s reconstruction would be guided by a UN framework,with input from a range of countries and multilateral organisations,such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

“There is ample opportunity for everyone to help,starting with policing and helping get the oil resources back on tap,” the official said.

Libya desperately needs international help to rebuild both its infrastructure and its civil society after 42 years of neglect under Col Gaddafi,and is urging international donors to make good on their pledges.

But the US,having spent $1,280bn on the wars and reconstruction of Afghanistan and Iraq,according to the US Congressional Research Service,has run out of both the money and the will to provide significant financial help to other countries at a time of spiralling deficits and deepening economic malaise at home.

The US will support the growth of civil society and pro-democracy groups.

“There was nothing before February 16,” the official in Washington said,referring to the date the Libyan uprising began. “Then all of this sprang up so it’s clear that Libyan people understand what civil society and democracy is. The question is how can we help them channel that energy into effective organisations so that it has an impact,” he said.

Any financial assistance would be “modest” he said,although he noted that even $1m could have a “tremendous” impact in a country like Libya.

Ali Suleiman Aujali,the NTC ambassador to the US,said that Libya did not want US financial assistance but simply to have access to its own funds. “We don’t need aid. What we want is to unfreeze the money we have in the US and in European countries,” Aujali told the Financial Times.

The US has released $1.5bn of Libyan funds that were frozen under UN sanctions while Col Gaddafi was in power,as has the UK and France. But the NTC still can not get access to billions more,including about $34bn in the US.

It is now urging the UN’s sanctions committee to lift the freeze and also to remove Libyan business entities,like the state oil company,from its blacklist so that international companies can resume operations. The issue will come up at the UN General Assembly next week,where the NTC is seeking to fill Libya’s seat.

“We need money now to start the reconstruction and pay salaries,” he said. “We have to let the Libyan people taste the wealth that they have not been able to taste for so long.”

The US and Libya under Col Gaddafi had long had a fraught and hostile relationship,though Washington warmed up to Tripoli after it abandoned its nuclear weapons programme and compensated victims of its alleged terror plots.

Relations chilled after Col Gaddafi suppressed a democratic uprising earlier this year. US warplanes played a key role in the Nato-led bombing effort that prevented Col Gaddafi’s taking of the former rebel capital of Benghazi and later paved the way for the rebel victory.

But Feltman said the US was not playing any role in the manhunt for Col Gaddafi,who has been urging his supporters to attack the institutions of the NTC.

For the rebel authorities,Col Gaddafi’s capture has become crucial to secure the country. Fighters loyal to the interim government continue to battle Gaddafi loyalists in the cities of Bani Walid and Sirte while gearing up for another potentially ferocious fight in the southern city of Subha.

Feltman,speaking after the press conference,said the US believed Col Gaddafi remained in Libya.

He said Washington was concerned about the possible proliferation threats posed by the conventional weapons spread around the country in the wake of the Gaddafi regime’s dissolution. But he also suggested worries about the proliferation of Col Gaddafi’s alleged stocks of weapons of mass destruction were overblown.

“To the best of our knowledge [the weapons precursors are fully containerised in bulk form and we believe they’re where they’re supposed to be,” he said.

Feltman also said the US would reopen “a fully functional,fully staffed” embassy as soon as possible. Its current facility was apparently vandalised and looted by Gaddafi supporters during the months of the war.

© 2011 The Financial Times Limited