This is a really good history of Iraq if you have time and want to read it...I don't believe Part II has come out yet. I'll keep an eye out and post it when I see it...It's pretty long so I won't post it all here.

Iraq: Mixed Opportunities, Messy Outlook? (Part I: The Road To Entrapment)

By: Isam al Khafaji Date: 8 February 2012


The Iraqi economy has gone through a roller coaster of changes for the last sixty years. In the first part of our analysis, we explore how Iraq fundamentally changed from an agricultural-based economy to one that relied solely on oil. We also question how this reliance on oil shaped the aftermath of Iraq’s economy and society after the Iran-Iraq war as well as the first Gulf war.


During the 1970s, Iraq was widely seen as a model of a third world modernizing state; electricity grids reached 95 percent of households, schools were built in the remotest places in the country and the people had access to medical care with nominal or free prices.
Yet despite the widespread perceptions, Iraq’s progress at that time was far from impressive or exemplary even when compared to other countries in the region, including the non-oil producing ones. The improvements, as it turned out, were only belying deep structural imbalances that would surface during the Iran-Iraq war between 1980 and 1988, the longest war in the post WWII era, and eventually leave an imprint on the country’s society and politics.

The Road To Entrapment
For the last sixty years, Iraq had been transforming into a textbook case of a rentier economy. In 1952, the country had a “normally” functioning underdeveloped economy that relied mainly on agriculture (23 percent of GDP) and manufacturing (8 percent) – in addition to the construction, transport, banking, trade and real estate sectors. Taxes and customs were also the state’s main sources for finance and foreign currency.


But a radical shift in the economy began with the signing of so-called “profit sharing agreements” with oil producing companies that year. Thanks to these agreements, the value of oil exports jumped from 120 million Iraqi dinars (ID) in 1953 to 348 million in 1969, with oil now comprising 93 percent of Iraq’s total exports. Another jump occurred with the nationalization of the oil industry in 1972 and the oil price hikes in 1973.

All this happened as the Ba’th Party began to come into power in 1968, with Saddam Hussein assuming its leadership and presidency of Iraq from 1979 until 2003. Under that regime, a strategy of co-opting the populace was adopted. Their pillars included providing widespread public services, rewarding supporters and followers, forcing acquiescence and subjecting opposition to brutal measures.
As a result, corruption and waste of significant resources began to surface. However, this was centralised so to speak; only Saddam Hussein and his close family were allowed to siphon resources for their own enrichment, while part of the tremendous wealth had been used to buy off high ranking officials and followers while the rest ended up in foreign banks, building luxurious palaces and so on.

The Iraqi government also adopted five-year plans aimed at increasing the role of manufacturing industries in the economy. The end results though were disappointing. In actual practice, the government was still throwing its weight behind raising the oil export capacity, which reached its peak of 3.7 million barrels per day in 1979 on the eve of the Iran-Iraq war. Saddam Hussein, who was presiding over the all powerful Committee of Oil before his presidency, was also behind a politically motivated strategy to maximize oil exports by extending Iraq’s oil pipelines, passing through Syria, Turkey and the Persian Gulf terminal, to and from the Turkish outlet of Ceyhan.

In addition, the industrialization effort in Iraq failed because the country had been afflicted by the Dutch Disease – a heavy dependence on oil exports to finance its budget. As the Iraqi currency continued to appreciate in value, previously productive sectors turned uncompetitive. The share of the manufacturing industry in Iraq’s GDP also plummeted to 8 percent while agriculture fell to 6 percent during the 1970s. In fact, the only industries, apart from oil, that managed to benefit from Iraq’s so-called economic boom were those engaged in non-tradable goods such as construction and transport, which were hugely reliant on the state being their single largest purchaser and employer. Ultimately, this came to a point where the number of employees in civil service, health, education and state-owned enterprises had jumped from 20,000 in 1958 to 580,000 in 1977 and 821,000 by 1993. These figures did not include armed, intelligence and Para-military forces or party members on public payroll.
Two huge economic consequences ensued from the above developments. Agricultural activities were becoming less attractive and non-profitable, causing waves of rural citizens to migrate to major cities looking for employment activities in the government, construction and transport sectors. Iraq’s rural population, which comprised 66 percent of the total population in 1947, saw a complete reversal in its size, and by 1977, the urban population now represented 64 percent of the nation.

Click on this link to read the entire article...
https://www.economywatch.com/economy-...html?page=full