[Dean's World] Dave Price: Whither Iraq, June 2006?

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Posted by Dave Price:
Whither Iraq, June 2006?
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1154549342.shtml


   Some answers in this week's update to the [1]Iraq Index:
   Apparently Iraqis think things have started to get better recently,
   based on the results of polling from June. The "right direction vs.
   wrong direction" numbers have flipped positive again (p45), from 30/52
   to 41/35, suggesting an increased perception of forthcoming
   improvements (this also means Iraqis are once again more optimistic
   about their country's direction than we are about ours). This may have
   something to do with Maliki; he has a 55% approval rating (p46) and
   58% express confidence in his leadership (p47).
   As we all know Iraq is still much, much too violent; 3/4 of Iraqis
   rate the security situation there "poor." But there are some
   surprises: only 7% give the sectarian split as the biggest problem,
   and fully 2/3 oppose any partition, indicating the overused "brink of
   civil war" phraseology we see in the media may be a Western conceit
   not shared by Iraqis.
   Electricity generation appears at a record high now, much higher than
   pre-war. The official production is 4400 MW (vs about 4000 prewar),
   but there is an additional 1000 MW of private generation (which did
   not exist under Saddam's despotic regime) in Baghdad alone, as many
   resourceful Iraqis have done what's necessary to keep their lights and
   AC on despite the worst efforts of insurgents. Extrapolating that to
   the rest of the country, we might reasonably guesstimate total
   electricity production is now something like 6500 MW.
   Oil revenue is reported at $2.37 billion for the first 16 days of
   July, meaning it was probably a record month as revenues had been
   running at around $3 billion per month. As much as we all hate the
   high gas prices, perhaps we can take some solace in the knowledge that
   a portion of that money goes to fund the nascent democracy in Iraq.
   There's been a lot of [2]caterwauling over how terribly mismanaged the
   reconstruction has been, and with good reason: it has, in fact, been
   terribly mismanaged. But that sort of thing seems to be intrinsic to
   any massive gov't project; consider, for perspective, Boston's Big
   Dig, which after spending roughly as much as was spent on the entire
   Iraq reconstruction still leaks and sometimes collapses on motorists.
   And no foreigners were kidnapped in Iraq in July (p17), which is good
   news for someone I know.

References

   1. http://www.brookings.edu/fp/saban/iraq/index.pdf
   2. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/01/AR2006080101453.html