MONTERREY, Mexico — President Bush said yesterday he will let companies in Canada begin bidding on primary construction contracts to rebuild Iraq, a privilege not previously granted to America’s antiwar northern neighbor.
Mr. Bush said the deal to let Canada in on the prime contracts was broached when the president placed a call to newly elected Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin late last month.
“I told him that Canada would be given serious consideration for contracting,” Mr. Bush said in remarks to reporters after meeting with Mr. Martin on the second day of the Special Summit of the Americas.
Mr. Bush wrapped up his participation in the summit of the 34-member Organization of American States by meeting Mr. Martin, Bolivian President Carlos Mesa and Argentine President Nestor Kirchner.
The brash Mr. Kirchner boasted Monday that he’d “win by knockout” in his 10-minute meeting with Mr. Bush.
A senior Bush administration official characterized the exchange as “a very good meeting, a very open meeting, a very frank meeting.”
“[Mr. Bush] congratulated President Kirchner on what he’s been able to do so far in terms of consolidating his own political power, also in achieving a significant amount of economic growth, and in doing a deal with the [International Monetary Fund] with solid commitments,” the senior administration official said.
“He used the opportunity to underscore how important it is to meet those commitments … because it’s the degree to which Argentina meets those commitments that underscores the ability for the IMF to continue to provide the kind of support it’s providing now,” he said.
A major factor in allowing Canada to bid for prime Iraq contracts, Mr. Bush said, was the fact that Canada has been a “very strong supporter of the Madrid Conference” by pledging $300 million at the October gathering in Spain on the financing of Iraq’s reconstruction.
Early last month, a memo by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz revealed a policy in which only companies from countries that supported the war in Iraq would be eligible for $8 billion in lucrative reconstruction contracts paid for with U.S. taxpayer money.
Canada, along with France, Germany, Russia and others, was left with the scraps of bidding on subcontract work as a result of the policy.
Mr. Martin publicly expressed his irritation at the policy, saying, “It was difficult to fathom,” especially because Canada was donating funds to Iraq’s reconstruction and had sent troops to fight in Afghanistan.
Yesterday, however, Mr. Martin emerged from his breakfast discussion with Mr. Bush and said he felt “very good about the meeting, and I feel very good about the relationship.”
“We had a very good telephone conversation before Christmas, and subsequently, our officials went to work,” Mr. Martin said. “Canada will be eligible to bid on all of the construction contracts in the next [round of contracts]. And at the same time, there are a whole bunch of nonconstruction contracts, service contracts that are coming out immediately in which we will be entitled to bid.
“And so I think that it actually does show that working together you can arrive at a reasonable solution,” he said.
A senior administration official said, “Conversations are continuing” with France, Germany and Russia as to whether they could bid on prime contracts in the second wave if they forgive a substantial amount of the debt incurred by former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
The friendly meeting with Mr. Martin was the president’s second fence-mending job in two days with America’s closest neighbors and biggest trading partners.
On Monday, Mr. Bush emerged from a lengthy one-on-one with Mexican President Vicente Fox with an enthusiastic ally for his plan to loosen immigration laws.
The president and Mr. Martin also pledged yesterday to work more closely together to prevent outbreaks of mad cow disease.
“This is an issue that is going to require close coordination between our two countries,” Mr. Bush said. “We’ve got a lot of beef going across our border.”
A cow in Washington state was found to have contracted bovine spongiform encephalopathy, commonly called mad cow disease, on Dec. 22. An investigation by the U.S. Department of Agriculture traced the cow to a ranch in Alberta, Canada.
“This is a North American industry, and the solutions are science-based,” Mr. Martin said. “And those science-based solutions are going to be arrived at between the two of us.”
Overall, the summit yielded few substantive diplomatic gains, but gave Mr. Bush a chance to restore good personal relations with leaders who have opposed U.S. foreign policy.
The White House touted agreement on a new hemispherewide initiative to fight the governmental corruption that has plagued Latin America for decades.
The president also obtained promises from the summit attendees to complete work on the Free Trade Area of the Americas treaty by the deadline of January 2005, and to spend more on AIDS prevention and treatment and on education.
A senior Bush administration official said countries that don’t fight government corruption could be excluded from the next summit in Argentina in 2005.
“Conceivably, it could result in that,” the official said. “The ultimate outcome you want is [for] them to come back into line. It’s been proven to be an effective tool for bringing an enormous amount of public and hemispherewide pressure to bear on folks.”
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