WSJ REPORTS “MARKETS EXPLODING” ACROSS IRAQ

Market boom bigger than expected, WSJ says

Washington, WPI - The Wall Street Journal wrote in a front page story today that, “the Free Market is exploding all across Iraq.”

“President Bush’s courageous crusade to bring freedom, democracy and free enterprise to the Iraqi people has been a smashing success!” the WSJ quoted international economist Warner Nobel III, co-author of a Council on Foreign Relations report on the progress made in the Iraqi economy.

“Cars sales are booming; housing and reconstruction are going through the roof and healthcare growth is on fire!” he offered zealously.

Nobel credits a series of steps the US has taken. “We replaced the oppressive security of Hussein with a hands-off, open society. People can now come and go as they please to conduct their business.”

Noel said that a major hurdle to building a market economy was Iraq's socialist past. Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath regime patterned its economy on the Soviet Union. "Iraq had a highly structured society, a centralized economy, and state controlled market place,” Nobel pointed out. “Commerce was quiet, growth was flat. Now, there are no regulations and the markets are all headed up.”

The next step, the report said, was to stimulate demand by creating jobs in the private sector. “We opened the country to unregulated travel. We encouraged unfettered entrance to the country’s urban markets.” wrote Icbaa Barcarat, a former Ba’athist economist in the Republican Gaurd and consultant to the report. “Next, we attacked the oil industry,“ he added.

Despite of the fact that Iraq has the world's second-largest oil reserves the Iraqi economy has benefitted very little from oil revenues.

“Don’t listen to those ‘cynics’ as President Bush calls them. We are succeeding!” White House spokesperson Kathy Deedley proclaimed. “Just look at the headlines. In Iraq, the sky’s the limit!”