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While
senior Iraqi politicians are knocking on the doors
of the Bush administration seeking pledges of
support for whatever government might emerge from
next month’s parliamentary elections, others have
come to Washington with a longer-term view.
Bayan Rahman, who chairs the Kurdistan Development
Corporation, is launching an initiative to draw
foreign investment to Iraqi Kurdistan, where the
main attractions are relative stability, resources
of oil, water and agriculture and potential for
tourism. Under the slogan of “the other Iraq”,
Kurdistan is marketing itself as the gateway to
Iraq. Land prices are shooting up and a construction
boom has led to shortages of concrete and labour.
A key clause negotiated by the Kurds in the
constitution provides for “new” oilfields to be run
by the regional governments. Even without the
contested region of Kirkuk, whose future political
status is undetermined, Iraqi Kurdistan claims to
have 45bn barrels of oil reserves.
Asked about the danger that Iraq will fragment under
a constitution that creates a very weak central
government, Ms Rahman replied: “If the constitution
is implemented in the spirit it is written, the
[minority] Sunni should have nothing to worry
about.”
The Kurds – about a fifth of the Iraqi population –
are wary of becoming reliant on investment from
their big neighbours, Turkey and Iran.
“We want to diversify, not to put all our eggs in
one basket,” Ms Rahman said.
Since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003, the
combined impact of the insurgency and the rampant
corruption inherent in the Iraqi system has won few
friends among US companies or the US officials
spending over $20bn in taxpayers’ reconstruction
funds.
Stuart Bowen, the special inspector-general for Iraq
reconstruction, told Congress in his latest
quarterly report: “Creating an effective
anti-corruption structure within Iraq’s government
is essential to the long-term success of Iraq’s
fledgling democracy.”
“The corruption in Iraq is killing us. People will
not invest without proper auditing,” says Ali
Aldabbagh, a member of parliament who has broken
from the ruling Shia Islamic alliance, because of
its injection of religion into politics, and has
joined a slate of secular technocrats. Construction
contracts and imports should be kept out of the
hands of the government, he says. His party’s
platform rests on expanding the private sector and
attracting investors at the local level.
However, he credits Ibrahim Jaafari, the prime
minister, for tackling corruption at the highest
levels. Iraq’s Board of Supreme Audit recently
concluded that $500m-$1.27bn of Iraqi funds were
lost in the defence ministry through corruption.
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