PM hopes to lift Iraq by doling out cold, hard oil cash

[skooooo]

Source: CNN

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- It is a politician's dream: Handing out cold, hard cash to people on the street as they plead for help. Iraq's prime minister has been doing just that in recent weeks, doling out Iraqi dinars as an aide trails behind, keeping a tally.

The handouts by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and a handful of other top officials are authorized -- as long as each goes no higher than about $8,000, and the same people don't get them twice. Aides say they are meant merely to ease the pain a bit, and are motivated by a belief that better conditions will lead to more security.

The cash handouts are just one small -- if eye-catching -- part of a major investment push this summer by Iraq's government. The aim is to rebuild basic services and jumpstart Iraq's damaged economy by quickly distributing as much of the country's glut of oil revenue as possible.

U.S. officials and a fed-up American public are urging exactly that -- for Iraq to spend its own money, not America's, to rebuild the country now that violence has eased.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/07/13/iraq.money.ap/index.html

[FVZA_Colonel]

1. This seems like a basically good thing.

THe more the Iraqis are able to take over the rebuilding of their country, the sooner we'll be able to pull out. And as long as their record keeping system is better than America's (which shouldn't be that much of a challenge, given how shitacular ours was), there might not be too many chances for corruption.

[no_hypocrisy]

2. Are you sure there isn't a law stating only Haliburton can rebuild Iraq?

And if I were the Iraqis, I'd ask for Euros!

[FVZA_Colonel]

6. I haven't followed those issues that closely, so I just don't know.

But I would not be shocked if it was. And I agree about the Euros.

[Tutonic]

3. Better conditions lead to more security? The US should

leave Iraq if they are looking for better conditions. Al Malaki is simply trying to bribe people with a cash hand out. Is that $8,000 worthless US or Mexican dollars?

[Lasher]

4. Handing out $8K in cash?

Their per-person GDP is $1,717. That's handing out almost five years of average wages! With all the money we have wasted on the war in Iraq we would have come out ahead if we would have just bribed the whole country. About $550 billion spent on the war so far divided up among the 26,783,383 Iraqis is $20,370 for every man, woman and child living there. That's their entire per-person GDP for the next 12 years. Quite a bribe!

http://zfacts.com/p/447.html

And now this. Looks like we're funding the war and bribing the whole country.

[Tutonic]

5. Wow. Intersting their GDP around 2000 was $3,000. So it has

fallen to $1,717? Sad.

[Lasher]

8. Population and GDP data is taken from the CIA's 2006 estimate.

If you go to the article I linked and download the spreadsheet available in the third paragraph from the end you can see that this is so. Updated data available here indicates a 2007 per-person GDP OF $1,963. (GDP (official exchange rate) divided by total population)

Per capita GDP in 2002 was $802. http://www.brookings.edu/saban/~/media/Files/Centers/Saban/Iraq%20Index/index.pdf (scroll down to the top of page 44).

Your unsourced smartass retort might have been more effective if you had known the difference between GDP and PPP.

[ben_meyers]

7. Looks like they have learned something from us

In Chicago we used to call it "walkin around money". Mayor Daley and his ward healers were famous for it, probably still are.

[Whoa_Nelly]

9. Iraq handing out cash to people on the streets

Source: AP

BAGHDAD - It is a politician's dream: Handing out cold, hard cash to people on the street as they plead for help. Iraq's prime minister has been doing just that in recent weeks, doling out Iraqi dinars as an aide trails behind, keeping a tally.

The handouts by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and a handful of other top officials are authorized — as long as each goes no higher than about $8,000, and the same people don't get them twice. Aides say they are meant merely to ease the pain a bit, and are motivated by a belief that better conditions will lead to more security.

<snip>
"Money is not a problem," al-Maliki told a recent gathering of tribal chiefs in the southern city of Basra, after government forces had defeated Shiite extremists there. "But we must put it in honest hands to spend."

<snip>
As for al-Maliki, Arab leaders have long used personal handouts to also gain political loyalty.

Most of the grants the prime minister gives out are only $200 to $400 to help those needing medical care, widows or people without jobs. On one recent visit to the riverside Abu Nawas park in Baghdad, he gave a group of boys each the equivalent of $40 in dinars to buy soccer balls. The biggest grants require documentation like letters from a hospital, his aides say.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080712/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_money_as_weapon

---

Where is all the money coming from? How much of it is US taxpayer money?
Could some of it be from oil corps?


Am suspicious of this.
However, if al-Maliki is doing this to place favor and gain loyalty, is an Iraq Revolution a possible outcome of this in trying to get the US out of there?

Seems things are really heating up...

[stray cat]

10. Jobs would be more helpful - consistent income and keeping busy

its as good a policy as a temperary drop in gas taxes to solve the oil problem long term

[MichiganVote]

11. Nice. The Iraqi's, war torn and divisive, offer a much improved "stimulus package" over the US

paid for by US taxpayers no doubt.

God I hate these fuckers.

[bemildred]

12. Fake money for fake peace, How appropriate. nt

[wtmusic]

13. US tax dollars redirected through contractors?

Peace for sale

[soothsayer]

14. don't we give the head of iraq $1M /mo slush fund

so he can pay bribes to his body guards, etc., to ensure his safety? yeah, this is US taxpayer money at work. I don't begrudge the iraqis it though, since we totally effed up the place.

[sandnsea]

15. Should have done it from the gate

Would have been a lot cheaper and easier. You will never subdue people who are economically desperate.

[Blue_In_AK]

16. Geez, that's even more than they're handing out here in Alaska.

Maybe I should move.

[Tutonic]

17. How many weapons can you buy with $8,000?