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Basra's
Next Battle: Defeating Corruption and Bureaucracy
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Posted on 07
January 2014
By Robert
Tollast.
As Iraqi troops
continue to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in Fallujah
and Ramadi, a different kind of battle is brewing 350 miles to the
southeast, one that could prove just as decisive for Iraq's future. In
Basra this year, the province has more cause for more hope than in
previous years. Here's why.
The dawn of
strategy
At the end of
2012, Colin Freeman reported a story in The Telegraph that made for
depressing reading: Britain was closing its consulate in Basra, just as
the province was experiencing a surge in foreign investment from all
over the world.
Last month I spoke
to a former British diplomat and asked him why this was, and he
remarked that security costs- around £6m per year, were the equivalent
to several embassies. But that wasn't the only thing keeping the
British away.
Another factor
that has often deterred foreign investors is of course bureaucracy and
the difficulty of getting your business on the ground because of Iraq's
fondness for red tape. Discouraging contractual terms offered to
investors have put a stop to many potential ventures, as someone with
years of experience in the country recently told me, "Iraq is good
at killing the goose before it lays the golden eggs."
But things might
be about to change. Last week, Freeman published another story in The
Telegraph reporting that Basra governor Nasrawi had hired the British
firm Aegis Defence Services to institutionalise the latest
counter-terrorism practices for the province.
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