By Jeff Leys, jeffleys@vcnv.org
Voices for Creative Nonviolence
September 18, 2006
This week, the International Monetary Fund will be holding its annual meeting in Singapore. No doubt, the economic restructuring and forced leveraging of Iraq will be a key component of talks surrounding the meeting. In these past few months, free trade zones have been established along the borders with Syria and Iran; foreign investment laws have been vetted and approved; and laws governing investment in the oil sector have been drafted and introduced. Iraq continues to move forward in implementing conditions imposed upon it through the Stand By Arrangement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in December of 2005. While the command economy established under Saddam Hussein’s regime was unsustainable, it is also highly probable that the benefits of the economic restructuring under way at present will accrue to the benefit of an elite segment of Iraq and of the international community. It is improbable that ordinary Iraqi citizens will be the beneficiaries of these changes.
