13 October Los Angeles Times - U.S. Touts Provincial Reconstruction Teams as a Model by Doug Smith.

... In a muted ceremony on a U.S. base in this northern city, Khalilzad inaugurated the reconstruction team for Salahuddin province, the last of seven teams the U.S. has established. In addition, Britain, Italy and South Korea are sponsoring a team each.

While characterizing the reconstruction groups as the "embodiment of the U.S. commitment … to ensuring Iraq's success," Khalilzad acknowledged their limited financial resources...

The teams will focus primarily on developing leadership at the local and provincial levels to continue the rebuilding process with diminishing U.S. financial aid...

The teams represent a "transition from working with them to spend U.S. money to working with them to spend Iraqi money," Robert Tillery of the State Department said in a telephone interview Thursday...

Provincial reconstruction teams are modeled on a similar concept used in Afghanistan. Each team consists of about 65 specialists from the State Department, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, USAID and the American military's civil affairs contingent.

The Iraqi Constitution does not allow local governments to raise revenue, thus forcing the provinces to compete for money from Baghdad. "We hear every time we go to the provinces that governments … want the authority to raise revenue," Tillery said at a recent news briefing. "And you can't blame them."

He said efforts were underway to insert a clause allowing local taxation into Iraq's national charter...