From: "Rich Gauszka" 

The weird part is Iraq's economy appears to be booming along with the other booming

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16241340/site/newsweek/

In what might be called the mother of all surprises, Iraq's economy is
growing strong, even booming in places. ..

Civil war or not, Iraq has an economy, and-mother of all surprises-it's
doing remarkably well. Real estate is booming. Construction, retail and
wholesale trade sectors are healthy, too, according to a report by Global
Insight in London. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce reports 34,000 registered
companies in Iraq, up from 8,000 three years ago. Sales of secondhand cars,
televisions and mobile phones have all risen sharply. Estimates vary, but
one from Global Insight puts GDP growth at 17 percent last year and
projects 13 percent for 2006. The World Bank has it lower: at 4 percent
this year. But, given all the attention paid to deteriorating security, the
startling fact is that Iraq is growing at all.

How? Iraq is a crippled nation growing on the financial equivalent of
steroids, with money pouring in from abroad. National oil revenues and
foreign grants look set to total $41 billion this year, according to the
IMF. With security improving in one key spot-the southern oilfields-that
figure could go up.

Not too shabby, all things considered. Yes, Iraq's problems are daunting,
to say the least. Unemployment runs between 30 and 50 percent. Many former
state industries have all but ceased to function. As for all that money
flowing in, much of it has gone to things that do little to advance the
country's future. Security, for instance, gobbles up as much as a third of
most companies' operating budgets, whereas what Iraq really needs are
hospitals, highways and power-generating plants

"John Beamish"  wrote in message
news:op.tkt3upnsm6tn4t{at}dellblack.wlfdle.phub.net.cable.rogers.com...
>
>
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/19/world/middleeast/19electricity.html?_r=1&ei
=5007&en=8ff05c6562960005&ex=1370318400&oref=slogin&partner=USERLAND&pagewanted
=all
>
>
> BAGHDAD, Dec. 18 - Over the past six months, Baghdad has been all but
> isolated electrically, Iraqi officials say, as insurgents have effectively
> won their battle to bring down critical high-voltage lines and cut off the
> capital from the major power plants to the north, south and west.
>
> The battle has been waged in the remotest parts of the open desert, where
> the great towers that support thousands of miles of exposed lines are
> frequently felled with explosive charges in increasingly determined and
> sophisticated attacks, generally at night. Crews that arrive to repair the
> damage are often attacked and sometimes killed, ensuring that the
> government falls further and further behind as it attempts to repair the
> lines.
>
> And in a measure of the deep disunity and dysfunction of this nation, when
> the repair crews and security forces are slow to respond, skilled looters
> often arrive with heavy trucks that pull down more of the towers to steal
> as much of the valuable aluminum conducting material in the lines as
> possible. The aluminum is melted into ingots and sold.

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