Iraqis are celebrating the latest symbol of Saddam Hussein's defiance, the reconstruction of a 1,110-foot bridge destroyed by allied bombers during the Persian Gulf War.
The 14th of July Bridge across the muddy Tigris River was rebuilt despite nearly five years of U.N. sanctions that bar Iraq from exporting its oil or importing needed goods.The intricate steel suspension bridge, whose towers rise 27 yards above the roadbed, spans a muddy stretch of the Tigris River through Baghdad.
"The Americans, the dirty Americans, thought we couldn't do it because of the sanctions," Iraq's industries minister, Hassan Kamal al-Majid, said at a dedication ceremony Sunday.
But since the war, Iraq has rebuilt bridges, refineries, government buildings and factories "even better than before," the minister, who is Saddam's son-in-law, said.
Schoolgirls waved flags and pompons and chanted Saddam's name. Baghdadis flocked to the site, creating the new bridge's first traffic jam.
State television carried a 20-minute program showing Saddam saying Muslim prayers on the bridge, which takes its name from the date in 1958 that the British-backed Iraqi monarchy was overthrown.
While the sanctions cause food and medical shortages, the government manages to keep things going. Western diplomats in Baghdad say the country is surviving on its oil.
Although Iraq is permitted to export up to 70,000 barrels of oil a day to neighboring Jordan to buy necessities, the diplomats say much more is leaving the country - but at sharply discounted prices.
They estimate Iraqi traders may be moving more than 200,000 barrels daily - twice what U.S. officials previously estimated - via Jordan and Turkey and aboard small tanker ships in the gulf.
Increasingly, Iraqi oil also is being trucked to Iran, a nation with which Iraq fought a war from 1980 to 1988, said the diplomats, who insisted on anonymity.
Estimated oil earnings of between $800 million and $1 billion a year have helped bolster Iraq's economy but come nowhere near the $12 billion its oil was earning annually before the gulf war.
Iraqi officials say they have no information about such oil shipments. And they say it is a struggle to meet the needs of Iraq's 18 million people.
"Outside the country, we're doing our best to convince the international community to put pressure on America to convince them to lift the sanctions," said Parliament Speaker Saadi Mehdi Saleh.
"Inside the country, we do our best to provide people with the things they need and to increase production," he said.
He bristled at U.S. allegations that the regime is squandering its money to rebuild military industry and construct palaces for Saddam rather than helping suffering citizens.
"We first rebuilt and fixed the damage to our factories and buildings. And then we fixed the palaces of the government," Saleh said. "They don't belong to Saddam Hussein. They are for the government."
Iraqi government spending continues for health and education programs, though at a fraction of the pre-war level, Saleh said. But while Iraq has the skilled labor to carry out most projects, it lacks crucial spare parts.
Saleh said, for example, that "problems with electricity still hamper us, especially in industry and agriculture."
Although Iraq has repaired many of its oil wells and refineries, Oil Minister Safa Jawad al-Haboubi says it will take 14 months after sanctions are lifted to boost production back to the pre-war level of 3.5 million barrels a day.