PRT diplomats coming to Iraq

"Ten veteran diplomats and four representatives of the Agency for International Development will depart for Iraq in coming days as the civilian core of 10 new provincial reconstruction teams, the first step in what the Bush administration has promised will be a significant increase in efforts to accelerate local economic and political development.
. . . Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, meeting with the new reconstruction team members on Friday, said, “I do believe that we learned an important lesson during our time in Iraq, which is that we don’t want to just try and build, and help the Iraqis build a stable, democratic society from the top down, but also from the bottom up.
“And that means that they have to have good local and provincial leadership, that they have to have good local and provincial governance, economic development. They have to be able to respond to the needs of their people. This is not a country that has had a concept of local governance and local leadership but rather one that was very much all centered in Baghdad, and we’re now trying to help them to build that.”

source
Shanker, Thom & Glanz, James. (The New York Times). Iraq Reconstruction Teams to Receive Needed Support. March 24, 2007.

posted: monday, march 26, 2007, 9:20 PM ET

tags: iraq provincial reconstruction team condoleezza rice