Box: Economic Consolidation Under Way in Iraq
by Amir Taheri

All 67 of Iraq’s cities and 85 percent of its smaller towns now have fully functioning municipalities. Several ministries, including the Ministry of Health and Education, have also managed to get parts of their operations going again. The petroleum industry is being revived with plans to produce up to 2.8 million barrels of crude oil a day before the year is out. The bazaars have more food to sell than since the late 1970s, while food prices, which jumped in the first few weeks after liberation, are now lower than they were in the last years of Saddam’s rule. Most hospitals are functioning again, with essential medical supplies trickling in for the first time since 1999.

In addition, some 85 percent of primary and secondary schools and all but two of the nation’s universities have reopened with a full turnout of pupils and teachers. Mukahebrat (secret police) agents no longer roam the campuses and sit at the backs of classrooms to ensure that lecturers and students do not discuss forbidden topics, nor are the students required to start each day with a solemn oath of allegiance to the dictator.

There has been no mass exodus from anywhere in Iraq. On the contrary, many Iraqis driven out of their homes by Saddam are returning to their towns and villages. Their return has given the building industry, moribund in the last years of Saddam’s rule, a boost. Iraqi exiles and refugees are also coming home, many from Iran and Turkey. Last month alone the Iranian Red Crescent recorded the repatriation of more than 10,000 Iraqis, mostly Kurds and Shiites. Iraq no longer has displaced persons, uprooted communities, and long lines of war victims leaving the country in search of a safe haven.

For the first time in almost 50 years Iraq has no political prisoners, no executions, no torture, and no limit on freedom of expression. Today Iraq is the only Muslim country where all shades of opinion—from the extremist Islamists of the Hezbollah to Stalinists and liberals, socialists, Arab nationalists, and moderate Islamists—can compete freely in an open market of ideas. All are now represented in the newly created Governing Assembly (Majlis al-Hukum). Iraq is also the only Muslim country where more than 100 newspapers and weeklies, representing all viewpoints, appear without having to obtain a police permit and without censorship.

The media have made much of power cuts, especially in Baghdad, but this is partly due to a 30 percent seasonal increase in demand because of air conditioning use in temperatures that reach 115 degrees. In other cities, for example, Basra, the country’s second-most populous urban center, more electricity is being used than at any time under Saddam Hussein.

A stroll in the open-air book markets of Rashid Street in Baghdad reveals that thousands of books, blacklisted and banned under Saddam Hussein, are now available for sale. Among the banned authors were almost all of Iraq’s best writers and poets, whom many young Iraqis are now discovering for the first time. Stalls selling videotapes and audiotapes are appearing in Baghdad and other major cities, once again giving Iraqis access to a formerly forbidden cultural universe.

The free market economy is making its first inroads into Iraq’s socialistic system in a number of small ways. Hundreds of hawkers are offering a variety of imported goods and doing brisk business by selling soft drinks, often bottled in Iran, and cookies and chewing gum from Turkey. Some teahouses, in competition to attract clients, offer satellite television as an additional attraction. Every evening people pack the teahouses to watch and discuss what they have seen in an atmosphere of freedom unknown under Saddam. During his rule people could be condemned as spies and hanged for owning a satellite dish. Another symbol of newly won freedom is the multiplication of cellular and satellite phones. Under Saddam, their illegal possession could carry the death penalty.

Life is creeping back to normal in Baghdad. Weddings, always popular in the summer, are being celebrated again, often with traditional tribal ostentation. The first rock concert since the war, offered by a boys’ band, has already taken place, and Iraq’s national soccer squad has resumed training under a German coach.

Two Iraqs exist today: one as portrayed by those in America and Europe who wish to use Iraq as a means of damaging Bush and Blair, and the other as it really exists, home to 24 million people with many hopes and aspirations and, naturally, some anxiety about the future. "After we have aired our grievances we remember the essential point: Saddam is gone," says Mohsen Saleh, a geologist in Baghdad. "A man who is cured of cancer does not complain about a common cold."

Amir Taheri is an Iranian journalist This is a shortened version of the author’s article published in the New York Post. He can be reached via http:www.benadorassociates.com.