Columbia International Affairs Online: Working Papers

CIAO DATE: 07/2010

Economic Challenges in Post-Conflict Iraq

Anthony H. Cordesman

March 2010

Center for Strategic and International Studies

Abstract

Economics are as important to Iraq’s stability and political accommodation as security and governance, and they are equally critical to creating a successful strategic partnership between Iraq and the United States. It is far from easy, however, to analyze many of the key factors and trends involved. Iraqi data are weak and sometimes absent. U.S. and Coalition forces generally failed to look in detail at many of Iraq’s most serious economic problems, or they issued heavily politicized reports designed to show that Iraqi “reconstruction” had been far more successful than it really was.