corrente

Iraqi reaction to Bush fire sale of their assets—except for the oil, of course——was not positive. Surprise!

Mark Fineman of the LA Times writes:

In the marble-floored corporate offices of Al-Hafidh General Trading Co., Waleed and Hani Hafidh vented the rage of many Iraqi businessmen Monday over the country's new wide-open foreign investment policy.Puffing furiously on imported cigarettes, the Hafidh brothers asserted that the economic reform package unveiled by Iraq's recently appointed finance minister in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on Sunday will destroy the country's small yet burgeoning private sector, create a permanent "world occupation" of its economy and render the Iraqi people "immigrants in their own land."

"Everything we asked for was thrown onto the trash heap," said Waleed Hafidh, echoing the thoughts of many business people in the Iraqi capital, some of whom appeared on Arab satellite television stations to air their grievances Monday.

"It's the wrong approach," said Sam Kubba, who heads the Iraqi-American Chamber of Commerce in Washington. "It's a recipe for disaster because it gives the impression that they're trying to sell off all the Iraqi resources. They should go about it much more slowly. Start by getting a democracy in place first and letting the people elect a government."

Oh, "gives the impression"? Wonder who the buyers will be?