# The War in Iraq is going Well; Discuss.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-in-iraq-is-going-well-discuss/206646
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [October 10, 2003, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-in-iraq-is-going-well-discuss/206646 "2003-10-10T10:42:25Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 5
### Author:  [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)
#### Post date: [October 14, 2003, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-in-iraq-is-going-well-discuss/206646/81 "2003-10-14T14:04:32Z")
A pastor was called to officiate a funeral in an unfamiliar parish. During the funeral he asked who of the parishioners would say a few kind words of eulogy but no one volunteered. He insisted again but several people said they really could not say anything good about the dead man. Finally, the pastor, exhasperated, says there _has_ to be someone who can say something good about the man. A guy in the back of the church raises his hand slowly and finally says “well, his brother was worse”.
It is a sad reflection on the situation in Afghanistan that when someone points out it is awful, the only response is that it could be worse if America had not intervened. . and that assesment is made by and is the opinion of the American government. The opinion of the locals does not count.
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### Author:  [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)
#### Post date: [October 14, 2003, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-in-iraq-is-going-well-discuss/206646/82 "2003-10-14T21:43:00Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by SimonX \*
> \*\*Most of Iraq is unpopulated or sparsely populated. The areas w/o people at all are completely peaceful. The minority of the country, the parts with people living in them, are the only parts that aren’t at peace. \*\*
Geez, **Simon** , don’t you understand? It’s like the maps of ‘red America’ and ‘blue America’ from the 2000 election. Screw _people_; what matters is _land_. If most of the _land_ is pro-GOP (here) or is at peace (there), then everything’s hunky-dory, and don’t you forget it. 😃
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### Author:  [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2003, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-in-iraq-is-going-well-discuss/206646/83 "2003-10-15T01:01:51Z")
**Pantom:** My experience tells me that the U.S. government rarely spins things blatantly when printing factual press releases. Whenever hard numbers are involved that can be independently verified, they are usually right. It’s when dealing with projections, causes and effects, and other ‘fuzzy’ facts that the government applies its spin.
For example, when Congress says, “The economy grew at an annual rate of 3.2% last year”, I tend to believe them, whether they were Democrats or Republicans. But when Congress says, “We project that the economy will grow at 3.2% on average for the next 10 years”, that’s when I put on my green eyeshade and start looking at the assumptions they are making.
In the case of the press release I quoted, the numbers are pretty hard - X miles of waterway cleared, Y Megawatts of electricity produced, etc. I already conceded that the government might jigger the numbers subtly - for example, by comparing peak production after the war with average production before. But if they say Iraq generated 4518 Megawatts of power, I believe it did.
Occasionally, this judgement is wrong. Once in a while the government throws a real howler out there. But even in those cases, you can usually chalk it up to a screw up, and not intentional lies. There are plenty of intentional lies, they’re just not that blatant.
On another subject, there is a new [Gallup Poll](http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/10/13/national0129EDT0417.DTL) out on opinion in Iraq:
> [@](#):
>
> The Gallup poll found that 71 percent of the capital city’s residents felt U.S. troops should not leave in the next few months. Just 26 percent felt the troops should leave that soon.
71% of people in **Baghdad** , the city which has been hit hardest in the war and lost the most. Gallup hasn’t polled elsewhere, because, they say, of security concerns. But if 71% in Baghdad want the U.S. to stay, can you imagine how many people in, say, Mosul or Kirkuk feel the same way?
I actually thought these numbers would be lower. Baghdad and Tikrit were the main recipients of Saddam’s regime. Most of the government officials worked in Baghdad. Baghdad got more than its share of the country’s power and resources. Saddam lived there, so public works and roads were better. There was no widespread ethnic oppression. And Baghdad bore the brunt of the bombing campaign.
More results:
> [@](#):
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> Almost six in 10 in the poll, 58 percent, said that U.S. troops in Baghdad have behaved fairly well or very well, with one in 10 saying “very well.” Twenty 20 percent said the troops have behaved fairly badly and 9 percent said very badly.
Solid support again. Amazingly so, considering the number of civilians that have been killed in riots, accidental shootings, the initial bombing, and terrorist attacks. Baghdad is under curfew, and there are gunbattles daily. And yet, 60% of the people think the U.S. troops have behaved at least ‘fairly well’.
Again, the numbers can only be much higher in other parts of the country outside the ‘Sunni Triangle’.
And just so you don’t think I’m cherry picking the results, the other question the article describes has this result:
> [@](#):
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> However, a sizable minority felt that circumstances could occur in which attacks against the troops could be justified. Almost one in five, 19 percent, said attacks could be justified, and an additional 17 percent said they could be in some situations.
I’m not sure what to make of that - I’d have to see the question itself, and you can’t without subscribing to Gallup.
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### Author:  [@Rashak\_Mani](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rashak_Mani)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2003, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-in-iraq-is-going-well-discuss/206646/84 "2003-10-15T02:42:42Z")
Well they are aware that if the US troops leave it will be civil war right after… thou the 71% is impressive enough. As is the “fairly well” judgement.
```
Those roadblock shootings that happened were mostly in Bagdhad or outside ? Can't remember any specific location mentioned.
```
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### Author:  [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2003, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-in-iraq-is-going-well-discuss/206646/85 "2003-10-15T02:51:47Z")
How can you even pretend to have any faith in poll numbers from Baghdad, _regardless_ of what they purport to prove? These people have no experience whatsoever in telling the truth to strangers. Ask yourself: if you had lived the last thirty odd years under a nutbar like Goddam Hussein, are you suddenly going to start being frank and open with a complete stranger?
If it were me, my first question has gotta be “Who does this guy work for?” If I think he’s an American, I start singing the praises of GeeDubya, apple pie, Brittany Spears.
How many of the people approached for this poll flat refused to answer? Then it necessarily follows that the _only_ people who are going to respond are a “self-selecting sample” with motivations we can only guess at. No matter what they say, it means diddly-squat. Why in the world would you imagine that they are being frank and straight-forward? Would you?
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### Author:  [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2003, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-in-iraq-is-going-well-discuss/206646/86 "2003-10-15T03:28:24Z")
Read the cite. The poll was done by Iraqis, who did not tell the people being polled who they worked for.
Also, according to the pollsters, the most striking thing was how _eager_ the people were to give them their opinion. They would haul them into their homes and expound for an hour.
I think you have it exactly opposite. What you see here isn’t oppressed people who are saying what they think the pollsters want to hear out of fear. You’re seeing people who WERE oppressed for decades, and who are now exulting in the fact that they finally get to have their own opinion and tell people about it.
Look at the number of independent newspapers that have sprung up around the country. Over 170 of them so far. Some supportive of the occupation, some opposed. Communist, capitalist, you name it. People in Iraq aren’t just willing to give their opinion now - they’re basking in the ability to do so.
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### Author:  [@Brutus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brutus)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2003, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-in-iraq-is-going-well-discuss/206646/87 "2003-10-15T03:29:43Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by elucidator \*
> \*\*How can you even pretend to have any faith in poll numbers from Baghdad, _regardless_ of what they purport to prove? These people have no experience whatsoever in telling the truth to strangers. Ask yourself: if you had lived the last thirty odd years under a nutbar like Goddam Hussein, are you suddenly going to start being frank and open with a complete stranger?.. \*\*
From an AP article at [SFGate.com](http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2003/10/13/national0129EDT0417.DTL), we get:
> [@](#):
>
> …When Gallup set out recently to poll Baghdad residents, the biggest surprise may have been the public’s reaction to the questioners: Almost everyone responded to the pollsters’ questions, with some pleading for a chance to give their opinions.
>
> “The interviews took more than an hour to do, people were extremely cooperative with open-ended questions,” said Richard Burkholder, director of international polling for Gallup. “People went on and on.”
Doesn’t seem like they have much of a problem speaking the truth to strangers, according to those actually talking to them.
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### Author:  [@pantom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pantom)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2003, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-in-iraq-is-going-well-discuss/206646/88 "2003-10-15T04:05:07Z")
I’m sure there’s relief that Saddam’s gone. I’m also sure that only a loony job or a Saddam sympathizer would want the soldiers to go at this point, as lawlessness and possibly civil war would result if they left.
None of which addresses Iraq’s two central problems: its ethnic divisions, and its status as, like Afghanistan, a supply region, this time as an oil supply region.
Saddam’s dictatorship is best understood as a more or less typical structure for a supply region: as I wrote above, typically the social structure of such a place is one where a tiny elite lords it over a largely impoverished population. Occasionally, enough money is made to keep the sans-coulotes happy too, as in Saudi until recently, but for the most part the limited goodies from the earnings supplied by the single viable export are distributed among a small and usually clannish bunch.
Once again, as in Afghanistan, the U.S. is not addressing this central problem. This gets us into a fundamental difference between you and I, as I’m sure you believe that Bremer’s laws re foreign investment and tariffs are a good thing for Iraq. To me, they are a recipe for disaster.
Let us recall one of the causes of the Civil War here in the U.S.: the North wanted tariffs on imported industrial goods, whereas the Southern planters were very much against this, since they lusted after foreign goods and their higher quality. But the U.S. at that time was a developing country, and the part that was developing, the North, needed some protection at that time in order to develop some local manufactures.
This is normal; as an economy matures, the tariffs can be dropped as the economy becomes able to compete with the most advanced countries more or less evenly.
Iraq is hardly in this position. If its local economy is to develop away from a total dependence on oil and related exports, some form of tariff protection and limits on foreign investment are going to have to be kept.
Even today, the U.S. can suffer, even if only temporarily, from the structural changes that stiff foreign competition brings. See this study from the Federal Reserve on the current “jobless” recovery, and the statistic with pie chart some ways inside, where they show that fully 79% of industry as measured by employment is undergoing structural, as opposed to cyclical, change, meaning, to put it simply, that lots of the jobs being lost in the U.S. today are going for good: [http://www.ny.frb.org/research/current\_issues/ci9-8.pdf](http://www.ny.frb.org/research/current_issues/ci9-8.pdf)
If the U.S., by far the most flexible economy on the planet, can suffer from this, how can we expect Iraq to cope with the merciless competition that being forced to compete with even the most advanced economies on an equal footing would bring, especially when their infrastructure is quite literally shot to hell? Only an ideologue would insist that they must. But such ideological rigidity is, IMO, the hallmark of this Bush Administration.
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### Author:  [@Early\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Early_Out)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2003, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-in-iraq-is-going-well-discuss/206646/89 "2003-10-15T04:30:40Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Sam Stone \*
> **My experience tells me that the U.S. government rarely spins things blatantly when printing factual press releases. Whenever hard numbers are involved that can be independently verified, they are usually right.**
You might be right, but those of us who lived through the Vietnam War tend to be somewhat more suspicious of government press releases. Remember the enemy casualty figures? Does the name William Westmoreland ring a bell?
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### Author:  [@g8rguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/g8rguy)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2003, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-in-iraq-is-going-well-discuss/206646/90 "2003-10-15T04:33:44Z")
> [@](#):
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> _Originally posted by ElvisL1ves_
> **If you’re going to cut and paste from the National Review, it would be courteous to credit it, too.**
So **Elvis** , are you going to apologize for this utterly baseless insinuation of plagiarism, or would that be expecting too much of you?
Because after all, it’s clear that implying that **Sam** is plagiarizing is a debunking of his argument and not a personal attack. :rolleyes:
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### Author:  [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2003, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-in-iraq-is-going-well-discuss/206646/91 "2003-10-15T04:39:51Z")
Why shouldn’t Iraq be able to compete? It has an educated populace, a long tradition in science, engineering, and mathematics, a reasonably modern infrastructure, and it has oil revenue it can use to improve the infrastructure, improve education, and even fund industry if it wants.
Iraq could be the pearl of the middle east. It has everything a modern country needs. And yes, I’m firmly in favor of free trade for the entire region.
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### Author:  [@Beagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beagle)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2003, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-in-iraq-is-going-well-discuss/206646/92 "2003-10-15T06:21:53Z")
Iraq’s only real competition on the world markets will be in oil. If they can just compete with other nations in the region in agriculture and manufacturing they can get some economic growth going.
I’m not a free trader uber alles, but quite often tariffs create tariff wars. One must be careful.
[aside] Actually GWB is not as much of a free trader as Clinton was. GWB went for steel tariffs, if not more that I’m unaware of.
**pantom** , to be clear, I’m not being dismissive of your arguments, as they are good ones. I would only note that Iraq can manufacture things for a regional market or their neighbors without running up against the world “widget” price on everything.
Our “labor costs” (otherwise known as our salaries) are pretty high compared to Iraq. So, I’d expect that with some capital investment (dodge those RPGs, kevlar suggested) Iraq should be able to rebound better than the US, actually.
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### Author:  [@Mr.Svinlesha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Svinlesha)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2003, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-in-iraq-is-going-well-discuss/206646/93 "2003-10-15T07:18:06Z")
**Sam** :
> [@](#):
>
> - My experience tells me that the U.S. government rarely spins things blatantly when printing factual press releases. Whenever hard numbers are involved that can be independently verified, they are usually right. It’s when dealing with projections, causes and effects, and other ‘fuzzy’ facts that the government applies its spin.\*
Well, perhaps it would be wise to differentiate between “the government” and “this administration.” But here’s an example from [**Spinsanity**](http://www.spinsanity.org/post.html?2003_05_25_archive.html#200367828) of how the current administration has employed factual information to create a misleading impression:
> [@](#):
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> \*\* Speaking at a signing ceremony for the new tax cut legislation on Wednesday, the President made a number of misleading statements about the benefits taxpayers will receive under the plan. Bush first discussed the bill’s benefits for families . “Altogether, 34 million families with children, including 6 million single moms, will receive an average tax cut of $1,549 per year,” he said. As with so many averages used by the administration, though, this average is brought up significantly by the large tax cuts that the wealthiest taxpayers would receive. According to a report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), data from the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center demonstrates that 77.8 percent of taxpayers will actually receive less than this average figure.
>
> The President also touted the bill’s benefits for seniors, saying, “12 million seniors will receive an average tax reduction of $1,401.” Once again, though, most of the benefits go to the upper end of the income spectrum. Tax Policy Center data shows that 89.4 percent of senior taxpayers will receive less than $1,401.
>
> The same goes for small businesses. Bush’s statement: “23 million small business owners will receive an average tax cut of $2,209.” Reality (according to CBPP): “The Tax Policy Center analysis finds that nearly 83 percent of those with small businesses income will receive less than this average amount.”\*\*
These examples fall into **Simon X’s** “not-lie” category: Bush can’t be accused of lying, per se, but he can certainly be accused of purposefully misleading his listeners.
The same may be true of a number of items on the list you posted earlier. For example, you cited Bremer’s claim that “coalition forces” have renovated over 1500 schools. But what does that mean, really? How does Bremer characterize a “renovation?” If I send a couple of marines with a paint bucket down the road to paint a fence in front of a school, have I renovated it? How many schools are there in Iraq, and how many really need to be renovated? In a war-torn, economically impoverished society, should school renovation really be a high priority, or could that 23 million dollars have been spent on more pressing concerns (like health care)?
I suspect that all of these “school renovations” are really politically motivated – that is, they represent something that the occupiers can put down on a piece of paper and show the folks back home, “See, we are accomplishing good things here.” Propaganda, in other words. But of course, I could be wrong.
But this discussion begs another question as well. Let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that things are going well in Iraq, or getting better, and so on. Would that fact in itself justify the US-led invasion and the manner in which it was sold to the American public?
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### Author:  [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2003, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-in-iraq-is-going-well-discuss/206646/94 "2003-10-15T11:54:08Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Sam Stone \*
> \*\*
> My experience tells me that the U.S. government rarely spins things blatantly when printing factual press releases.
> It’s when dealing with projections, causes and effects, and other ‘fuzzy’ facts that the government applies its spin.
> \*\*
Or with the reasons _behind_ the numbers. Kind of like here:
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Sam Stone \*
> \*\*
> 71% of people in **Baghdad** , the city which has been hit hardest in the war and lost the most. Gallup hasn’t polled elsewhere, because, they say, of security concerns. But if 71% in Baghdad want the U.S. to stay, can you imagine how many people in, say, Mosul or Kirkuk feel the same way?
>
> And Baghdad bore the brunt of the bombing campaign.
>
> But if 71% in Baghdad want the U.S. to stay, can you imagine how many people in, say, Mosul or Kirkuk feel the same way?
> \*\*
Why it seems that it’s a good sign or a sign of good things when people want foreign troops to be stationed en masse in their country’s capital is something that’s open to speculation. If things were going well in an area, it’d seem that they’d more ready for the armed foreigners from a country they have relationship of antipathy with to depart.
This is another number provided with insufficient context.
Under what conditions would you favor the continued stay of tens of thousands of Iraqi troops in DC?
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Sam Stone \*
> \*\*
> I actually thought these numbers would be lower. Baghdad and Tikrit were the main recipients of Saddam’s regime. Most of the government officials worked in Baghdad. Baghdad got more than its share of the country’s power and resources. Saddam lived there, so public works and roads were better. There was no widespread ethnic oppression.
> \*\*
So these other areas are more used to hardship and having to fend for themselves?
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Sam Stone \*
> \*\*
> And yet, 60% of the people think the U.S. troops have behaved at least ‘fairly well’.
> \*\*
Which I think is great given the alien nature of the world they’re having to interact in. Kudos to our “boys.”
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Sam Stone \*
> \*\*
> Again, the numbers can only be much higher in other parts of the country outside the ‘Sunni Triangle’.
> \*\*
Because…
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Sam Stone \*
> \*\*
> I’m not sure what to make of that - I’d have to see the question itself, and you can’t without subscribing to Gallup.
> \*\*
And then, you have to agree to not re-post them or even send them via interoffice memo. What the hell? I almost signed up until I got to the agreement.
PS the poll isn’t “new”: “The poll of 1,178 adults was taken between Aug. 28 and Sept. 4…”
it’s the same Gallup poll as before. They’re just trickling the info.
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### Author:  [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2003, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-in-iraq-is-going-well-discuss/206646/95 "2003-10-15T12:01:42Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Sam Stone \*
> \*\*
> Why shouldn’t Iraq be able to compete? It has an educated populace, a long tradition in science, engineering, and mathematics, a reasonably modern infrastructure, and it has oil revenue it can use to improve the infrastructure, improve education, and even fund industry if it wants.
> \*\*
Why shouldn’t Iraq be able to compete?
“A reasonably modern infrastructure” that requires tens of billions of dollars to repair. I assume that tens of billions mean signifigant work. Signifigant work means signifgant damage, and/or shortfall.
“And it has oil revenue it can use to improve the infrastructure,improve education, and even fund industry if it wants” one day, year **s** from now, (provided no new, major sabotage occurs), once the petro infra-structuire is revitalized. Currently, the revenue from petro _and_ taxes will be required to run the govt for the next several years.
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### Author:  [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2003, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-in-iraq-is-going-well-discuss/206646/96 "2003-10-15T14:53:39Z")
The Bush Administration clearly doesn’t think Iraq can compete. It’s budgeted hundreds of millions of Iraqi reconstruction money for prison construction - monies that only make sense to pay American companies to do the work on the other side of the world, at danger/hardship rates.
If the Bush Administration believed Iraq could compete, it would budget monies appropriate for local Iraqi contractors to do the work at local rates. But that’s not what it did, is it?
Or it _could_ believe that Iraqis can compete, but it might give a higher priority to throwing money at Halliburton and Bechtel.
Would “fat cats scratching each other’s backs” make a good tongue-twister? That’s OK - they don’t say it; they just do it. Then they holler, “class war!” if anyone else says it.
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### Author:  [@Beagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beagle)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2003, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-in-iraq-is-going-well-discuss/206646/97 "2003-10-15T20:22:36Z")
> [@](#):
>
> If the Bush Administration believed Iraq could compete, it would budget monies appropriate for local Iraqi contractors to do the work at local rates. But that’s not what it did, is it?
That’s another issue unrelated to whether Iraq can come back. But, you already know that.
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### Author:  [@Milum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Milum)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2003, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-in-iraq-is-going-well-discuss/206646/98 "2003-10-15T21:14:08Z")
Aren’t contracts to rebuild Iraq public record? Let us together expose the " Fat Cat American Capitalistic Pigs " whose good ol’ boy political contracts are stealing bread from the industrious Iraqs. This is something that needs address. Don’t bitch…expose!
I await your exposure.
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### Author:  [@pantom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pantom)
#### Post date: [October 16, 2003, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-in-iraq-is-going-well-discuss/206646/99 "2003-10-16T02:31:56Z")
**Beagle** : I’m not normally _for_ tariffs. I was amazed early on in the Clinton term when he spent oodles of political capital - for which he received and is still receiving from the right exactly zero credit - on passing NAFTA. It was the right thing to do, and he got it through Congress with an iron determination that was probably the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
But this is the U.S. we’re talking about: we may have economic problems to address, but we also have tools to address those problems that no other economy on this planet has. We should lead by example (something that Bush needs to learn).
But Iraq is another story entirely. Let us pick apart the blind allegiance to “free trade” and “free markets” by seeing what choices, in the real world, Iraq actually has:
**The Faulty Feedback Dilemma**
This one’s a classic for supply regions. Given the floating currency regime now in place worldwide, and a commodity-based economy, the problem any supply region anywhere in the world faces is: how do you encourage industry when they are being hurt when they should be helped, and helped when it’s counterproductive for them to get any help?
Let us, ahem, elucidate.
If you’re at the head of a country with abundant supplies of some coveted natural resource, whether it’s oil, copper, bauxite, lumber, or even some agricultural commodity like coffee or cocoa, you’ve been simultaneously both blessed and cursed. Blessed, because you now have something that the rest of the world wants badly. Cursed, because it will rule your economy whether you like it or not.
As you should know, **Sam** , the currencies of commodity-based economies rise and fall with the fortunes of those commodities. Yours truly, being more than a little interested in the world of investment out of sheer self-interest, will look at the CRB index of commodities, which has been in a rising trend, and then look at currencies like the Australian or Canadian dollar or the South African rand to see if they are also rising. If those currencies are rising, then I know that the rise in the CRB index is real, not Memorex. In other words, the currencies of commodity-based economies rises and falls with the fortunes of the prices of commodities.
For single-commodity economies like Iraq, this poses a very big problem. Your currency doesn’t respond to the fortunes of whatever industry you’ve managed to encourage outside of the commodity that gets you your export earnings; instead, your currency responds only to the signals it gets from the price of the commodity your economy depends on. That means your industry doesn’t get the automatic price protection that a falling currency brings when there’s a recession; nor does it rise when industry is doing well, thereby forcing on your local industry the merciless price competition it needs in order to stay efficient when things are going well. The level of the currency instead is only coincidentally at the level it needs to be at to give your local industry the feedback it needs in order to grow and develop.
For an energy based supply region like Iraq, the problem is compounded by the fact that if oil is at a high price, your currency will be flying high, but your industry will have to pay that price for energy as well if you’re following a fully free market model, which will subject it to the double whammy of high energy prices and a lofty currency that will kill its chances at competing internationally. For a country like Iraq, at the stage of development at which it finds itself, only the artificial protection of tariffs will give them any chance to develop any sort of economy outside of a total dependence on oil.
**The Corruption of the Elites**
As I’ve pointed out, single-commodity economies, or supply regions, are singularly vulnerable to truly massive corruption, because given a single resource on which the rest of the economy depends, the natural tendency will be for the power over that resource to be concentrated in the hands of a single person and his family/clan/region/ethnic group.
In Mexico, until President Ernesto Zedillo, the predecessor of Vicente Fox, there was a pattern of a president coming in, ruling, showering his family and close friends with favors, and then leaving with as much money as he and his family could get away with. Salinas, Zedillo’s predecessor, was almost the embodiment of this, with his brother having been arrested for having plotted murder and engaged in, I kid you not, “inexplicable enrichment”. Actually the enrichment was quite easily explicable.
Anyway, Mexico is of course an oil exporter, and while Mexico has plenty of other exports, oil is up there in importance, and more than one commentator on the country has noticed the mixed blessing that oil has been.
Personally, I consider it no coincidence that the first president since the revolution to countenance a true opposition and have truly free elections was Zedillo, and that he ruled at a time when oil prices were chronically low. But an abundant and valuable natural resource is a constant temptation to corruption, unless some counterbalancing source of wealth can be created. As I believe I’ve shown in the first part of this diatribe, getting yourself a counterbalancing source of wealth is going to be remarkably difficult in a completely “free market” context, for a developing economy with an abundant natural resource.
In short, what we would call “protectionism” is the only way out for supply regions. The chances of success, even with a protectionist policy, are not terribly high. But without it, there is, I believe, no chance at all.
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### Author:  [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)
#### Post date: [October 16, 2003, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-war-in-iraq-is-going-well-discuss/206646/100 "2003-10-16T10:41:25Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Milum \*
> \*\*Aren’t contracts to rebuild Iraq public record? Let us together expose the " Fat Cat American Capitalistic Pigs " whose good ol’ boy political contracts are stealing bread from the industrious Iraqs. This is something that needs address. Don’t bitch…expose!
>
> I await your exposure. \*\*
Your wait is over.
But first of all, let’s get our language straight: we’re talking about legislation _proposed_ by the White House, here: there won’t be any contracts until it’s enacted into law.
But the details of this legislation have been widely published in the media. Here’s a list that the Christian Science Monitor reprinted from the Washington Post:
> [@](#):
>
> Iraq project sampler
>
> The United States would spend $20.3 billion to rebuild Iraq under the latest spending proposal from President Bush. According to The Washington Post, some of the projects include:
>
> 1. Four-week business course for 2,000 Iraqis, $20 million ($10,000 per pupil)
> 2. Forty new garbage trucks, $2 million ($50,000 per truck).
> 3. Imported petroleum, including kerosene and diesel, $900 million.
> 4. Funding to bring in 100 prison-building experts for six months, $10 million ($100,000 per expert).
> 5. Seven planned communities to include 3,258 houses, roads, an elementary school, two high schools, a clinic, and a place of worship and market for each community, $100 million.
> 6. Witness protection program for 100 families averaging five persons per family, $100 million ($200,000 per person).
> 7. New curriculum to train the Iraqi army, $164 million.
> 8. Two 4,000-bed prisons, $400 million ($50,000 per bed).
> 9. Funding for 500 experts to investigate crimes against humanity, $100 million ($200,000 per expert).
> 10. Protection for 400 judges and prosecutors, $20 million ($50,000 per person).
> 11. Begin work on a $500 million to $700 million children’s hospital, $150 million.
> 12. Overhaul business practices of Iraq’s postal service, including start of ZIP code system, $9 million.
> 13. Computer study of the Iraqi postal service, $54 million.
Like I said, the monetary amounts shown are clearly set for American companies being paid at American rates, with premiums for working overseas in a dangerous environment at what would be a hardship post. Much of this work could be done by Iraqis, at rates appropriate to the region. This would be far more appropriate, given the level of education and expertise among the Iraqi population, and given the high level of unemployment there and the need to get _their_ economy rolling again.
So yeah, this is all about fat cats scratching each other’s backs, plain as day. How can it be anything else?
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