The International Conference of Donors for Iraq's Reconstruction, held in Madrid last month, pledged assistance totaling nearly $40 billion (about 4.4 trillion yen), with direct financial contributions alone amounting to $33 billion. The World Bank estimates that Iraq will require $56 billion (about 6.16 trillion yen) of reconstruction funds in the four years from next year until 2007. Nearly 70 percent of this figure was secured at the Madrid conference, but France, Germany and others who opposed the war in Iraq did not announce any more contributions on top of the $830 million already pledged by the European Union. Thus, the conference revealed that divisions exist among the leading countries on the issue of reconstruction assistance, too.

However, the political framework to support the reconstruction of Iraq appears to have been established. In addition to prominent contributions from the United States ($23 billion) and Japan ($5 billion, about 550 billion yen), which together account for more than 60 percent of the total, pro-American countries like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia also announced contributions.

At the same time, the donor conference brought some serious and important issues into relief. First, public security has still not been restored in Iraq, and the country is not yet in a state in which large amounts of money can be poured in and full-scale reconstruction projects undertaken. Second, it is necessary to strictly manage the assistance by establishing Iraqi trust funds to oversee the money.