Bush marks end of conflict with focus on rebuilding

The United States declared an end to serious hostilities in Afghanistan and Iraq yesterday, and it shifted the focus to reconstruction in the two countries that have been the prime targets of the Bush administration's "war on terrorism".

In Kabul, the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, sought to give a boost to flagging reconstruction efforts by proclaiming that "major combat activity" is over and the priorities now were "stability, stabilisation and reconstruction".

Hours later, President Bush delivered a similar message about Iraq after landing on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in the Pacific Ocean, as it headed towards San Diego after 10 months at sea and service in both the Afghan and Iraqi campaigns.

"Major combat operations in Iraq have ended," said Mr Bush. "In the battle of Iraq, the US and our allies have prevailed and now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing the country. When we leave, we will leave behind a free Iraq." He also warned: "Any outlaw regime that has ties to terror groups is a grave danger and will be confronted." Brilliant sunshine, met with effusive cheers and applause from servicemen and women aboard the carrier.

Because Saddam Hussein and Iraq's alleged chemical and biological weapons have yet to be found ­ and for diplomatic convenience ­ Mr Bush is stopping short of claiming definitive victory in his prime-time address to the nation. But the thrust will be the same as that of Mr Rumsfeld in Afghanistan: only mopping-up remains, and the task now is to rebuild a country devastated by decades of misrule and oppression.

But well before Mr Rumsfeld spoke, reconstruction was under way, under a plan drawn up and executed mainly by the US government and American companies, and which accords secondary importance at best to the UN and multilateral institutions, including the World Bank and the IMF.

In a key personnel move reported by Newsweek magazine, Mr Bush has decided to appoint a career State Department official and anti-terrorism specialist, Paul Bremer, as the civilian administrator of Iraq. Mr Bremer will have authority over retired General Jay Garner ­ who runs the humanitarian and non-military reconstruction work ­ and Zalmay Khalilzad, Mr Bush's special envoy who is leading efforts to form an interim government in Baghdad.

The choice, if confirmed, would represent a victory for Colin Powell, the Secretary of State, in the running skirmishes with Mr Rumsfeld's Pentagon, which has tried ­ usually successfully ­ to get its own men into influential posts.

Less obviously, a US project for economic and financial reconstruction, whose costs are put between $20bn and $60bn (£12.4bn-£37.3bn) a year, is taking shape. Again, American companies, American personnel and American policies are in the forefront. These measures are part of an overhaul aimed at giving Iraq a US-style economic system. This would see wholesale privatisation (perhaps even of state-owned Iraqi oil concerns), the training of Iraqis in the ways of Western capitalism, and a new tax code.