Nevertheless, Lorenzo Perez, the IMF director who oversaw the review, said that in the medium term he was "quite optimistic" about the country's prospects, although this will "depend on the level of oil prices".
"It is easy to overlook that the establishment and maintenance of relative macro-economic stability in the midst of violence is an achievement in itself," he added.
...
Fly into Arbil, the regional capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, and you feel that you have arrived in another country....Now it brings in investors. Businessmen, scared away from other parts of Iraq, are coming to Kurdistan instead, and helping its economy to take off.
..."Things are booming. The price of land is ridiculous. It's just going up and up and up," says businessman Bettin Saleh, who has two shops in a new mall. "People have money, people are spending it, they feel it's safe to spend - and build for the future."
...
Property prices in Najaf are being driven through the roof by the Shia visitors who have flocked to its holy sites since the invasion of Iraq by Coalition forces...At the same time, local real estate agents and entrepreneurs say they are doing a roaring trade.
As far as I'm concerned, the good news from Iraq is that the people there have taken three giant steps closer to breaking up their centralized government into a federation of three separate nations. Which is what they always have been when not under control of a dictator.
It has been suggested that the US troops be pulled out of all the Arab-populated parts of Iraq and stay in bases in Kurdistan, where the people, in contrast to the Arabs, are said to strongly favor our presence.
Here's more good news: another Iraqi Army unit steps up.
MUQDADIYAH, IRAQ – In the fertile "bread basket" of central Iraq's Diyala valley, roadside-bomb attacks have nearly stopped.
The relative peace in the breadbasket is the result of a carefully managed transition from US to Iraqi security responsibility, US and Iraqi commanders say.
The local Iraqi Army unit, the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Brigade, officially took the lead in a roughly 1,158 square-mile battle space, containing nearly 300,000 residents, on July 31.
"We're responsible for actual security, and it is going well," says the unit's commander, Col. Theya Ismail al-Tamimi, a former intelligence officer under Saddam Hussein who has gained the Americans' respect by keeping constant pressure on the insurgents. "Attacks are a fraction of what they were," says Colonel Theya, as he is known to both his own troops and the Americans.
US troops recently closed down one of their forward operating bases near here, "since the area was so calm," Lt. Col. Roger Cloutier, a US battalion commander, says.
...
While the 2/2 evolved out of one of Iraq's earliest postinvasion army formations, its success can be replicated everywhere with time, the US commander says. "I can't speak outside my sandbox. But to different degrees, you have the same things happening all over Iraq."
(Warning: this comment thread may soon become unsuitable for children...)
Nevertheless, Lorenzo Perez, the IMF director who oversaw the review, said that in the medium term he was "quite optimistic" about the country's prospects, although this will "depend on the level of oil prices".
"It is easy to overlook that the establishment and maintenance of relative macro-economic stability in the midst of violence is an achievement in itself," he added.
...
Fly into Arbil, the regional capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, and you feel that you have arrived in another country....Now it brings in investors. Businessmen, scared away from other parts of Iraq, are coming to Kurdistan instead, and helping its economy to take off.
..."Things are booming. The price of land is ridiculous. It's just going up and up and up," says businessman Bettin Saleh, who has two shops in a new mall. "People have money, people are spending it, they feel it's safe to spend - and build for the future."
...
Property prices in Najaf are being driven through the roof by the Shia visitors who have flocked to its holy sites since the invasion of Iraq by Coalition forces...At the same time, local real estate agents and entrepreneurs say they are doing a roaring trade.
It has been suggested that the US troops be pulled out of all the Arab-populated parts of Iraq and stay in bases in Kurdistan, where the people, in contrast to the Arabs, are said to strongly favor our presence.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
People forget that US politics was once highly regional as well, and still is to some extent.
That seems encouraging.