Joel Wing's blog

On October 15, 2009, the Sadrist movement held the very first primary election in Iraq’s post-Saddam era history. While the group hailed it as a step towards democracy, it was more a way to rally and gauge support before the 2010 parliamentary elections.

Iraq’s cabinet has passed a new preliminary 2010 budget. It stands at $67.29 billion, an $8.4 billion increase from 2009. Like previous budgets, the overwhelming majority of the spending will go towards operational costs. Of the $67 billion, 73%, $49.17 billion will be for salaries, pensions, etc. That leaves only $17.83 billion for the capital budget that goes towards development and infrastructure.

Iraq’s security situation has greatly improved since the height of the sectarian war. Now Iraqis are facing a new danger, rising crime. In fact, the two issues are linked as many blame former insurgents and militiamen for carrying out kidnappings, robberies, etc., as they have no other means to support themselves. Members of the security forces have also been implicated, pointing to the high levels of every day corruption that exists in the country.

Basra in southern Iraq and Irbil in Kurdistan are responding to the drought in different ways. Basra wants to be declared a disaster area and is calling for immediate relief, while Irbil is thinking more long-term and trying to create a water policy.

The United Nations Habitat for a Better Future project just released a fact sheet on the housing conditions in Iraq. It found that 40% of Iraqis live in slum conditions.

Anbar was once the center of the Sunni insurgency. After the Awakening movement and the Surge however, violence there dropped dramatically. Every time there’s a mass casualty bombing in the province however, there are concerns that militants are making a comeback. The latest incident was an October 11, 2009 attack on the provincial council building in Ramadi, which ended up killing 23, and wounding 65, while members of the National Reconciliation Committee were meeting with local Anbar officials.

Sunday’s devastating bombing on the Justice and Municipalities Ministries, and the Baghdad provincial council building in the capital follows the current trend in Iraqi violence. Since April 2009, the number of deaths has fluctuated up and down each month.

The Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) July 2009 parliamentary elections were touted as a sea change in Kurdish politics. For the first time, the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) of KRG President Massoud Barzani and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani faced a real challenge from the new Change List headed by the co-founder of the PUK Nishurwan Mustafa.

Iraq’s Human Rights Ministry recently released a report on the situation in Iraq. Part of it included casualty figures for 2004 to October 2008. The Ministry counted 85,694 civilians and security force members killed, and 147,195 people wounded. Those figures are very close to the two other organizations that have kept count of deaths in Iraq for that time period.

The latest statistics for Iraq show that core inflation is creeping back up in the country. Since early 2008 core inflation, that which excludes fuel, electricity, communication, and transport costs, has dropped in Iraq from 15.9% in April to 3.8% in April 2009. Since then however, it has crept back up to 10.8% in August.