Theft and Betrayal

Dahr Jamail reports on Iraqi business under the Occupation. American companies profit while Iraqi businesses struggle and owners flee.

"I used to employ more than 30 workers in my plastic products factory, and business was good before the occupation," Abbas Ali told IPS in Baghdad. "It is impossible to work now, and I had to go back to my old job as school teacher. I was offered 200,000 dollars for the business, but now it is not worth anything. I blame myself for not selling it to flee, like some of my colleagues who live safely in Syria now." [...]

"There is no Iraqi brand any more," plastic products distributor Johar Aziz told IPS. "Iraqi products flourished during the quarter century before occupation, but now we only sell imported products of the lowest quality, and people have to buy them because there is no alternative." [...]

"We used to open our shops for at least 16 hours a day, but now we only open for a few hours because of the security threats," Duraid Abdullah, an electrical appliances shop owner in Karrada told IPS. "We are facing all kinds of threats starting from being abducted for money or sectarian reasons, as well as being evicted from our shops by gangs supported by government forces." [...]

"The picture of Japan after World War II dominated the minds of businessmen in Iraq after occupation," he said. "Most of us thought the American invasion of Iraq was bad for many things, but it must be good for business in general and industry in particular. We were terribly wrong. The Iraqi economy was meant to be destroyed for political reasons."