While CNNMSNBCFOX obsess over the disappearance of another pretty young white woman, we turn to this LA Times story (free sub.) chock full of shockers, given the billions we’ve shelled out for the new Iraqi government.
Shocker: “Iraqis, who are already dealing with food shortages, daily power blackouts and a deadly insurgency, on Sunday received another dose of bad news: Their newly elected leaders may slash budgets and government jobs.”
Unemployment is 30% — Dahr Jamail says it’s 50% — and half the workforce is employed by the state. “Hamam Shamaa, an economist with the Iraqi Institute for Future Studies, a think tank, said that each Iraqi without a paycheck is a potential recruit for well-funded militant groups.”
Another Shocker: “On Sunday, members of Iraq’s elite police commando units, heralded by U.S. and Iraqi officials as a key to stemming the insurgency, staged a protest outside Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, saying they hadn’t been paid in four months, …” (LAT).
This story might as well as be called “Paul Bremer’s Legacy.” More below:
More from the LAT:
For months, U.S. and Iraqi officials have said that poor, desperate Iraqi men have been carrying out many of the insurgent attacks in exchange for cash handed out by Hussein loyalists and foreign Islamic extremists. Many Iraqis blame the former U.S. administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer III, for laying the groundwork for the insurgency by summarily dismissing the old Iraqi army’s tens of thousands of soldiers, a move that may have swelled the ranks of militant groups.
Salaries account for only 20% of public expenses, Shamaa said. Iraqi ministry employees earn about $130 a month on average. He warned that with increasing food prices, 30% unemployment and 9 million Iraqis living below the poverty line, any budget cuts could push more Iraqis toward violence.
“We have to find jobs for people, not throw them out of work,” he said. “I think that reducing the public sector will only encourage the insurgency.”
Government spokesman Laith Kubba disagrees, and points to Iraq’s obligation to the IMF:
Kubba, who last week had discussed slashing popular subsidies for electricity and oil products, said that shrinking the government and allowing the private sector to expand would solve many of Iraq’s financial troubles.
He said the nation was obligated to reduce public spending under a debt-reduction scheme sponsored by the International Monetary Fund. The Jafari government, he added, was contemplating creating a ministry of administrative reform to cut subsidies and bureaucratic waste.
Iraq’s oil industry, he said, had been hampered by acts of sabotage, including a fire that shut down a pipeline from Kirkuk to Turkey from Friday to Sunday. Oil industry officials say sabotage has dragged northern oil exports down from 1 million barrels a day during Hussein’s rule to no more than 350,000.
Because of sabotage, Kubba said, the country failed to fully fund its 2004 budget and is in danger of falling further behind in 2005. Oil exports amounted to 95% of Iraqi revenue last year, he said, making the economy particularly vulnerable to any drop in oil prices. …
And whose “YES MAN” might Kubba be?
May I just add what a fucking mess I find this entire situation to be?
Emphases mine.
