The Walmartization of Iraq?

Tweet Rajiv Chandrasekaran explains how a U.S. defense department employee is opening state-owned businesses to put people to work (for Walmart, he hopes, in the future). Link to whole article here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/13/AR2007051301165_pf.html

"Although the embassy's chargé d'affaires, Daniel Speckhard, said Brinkley "has the support of the embassy," Brinkley travels to factories without embassy personnel in tow and holds his own meetings with Iraqi trade, commercial and banking officials. He has also organized trips for U.S. business executives to Iraq and has encouraged deals between Iraqi state-owned firms and U.S. corporations.

"Brinkley, who was interviewed in Washington, said he expects several factories to reopen this summer. By year's end, he envisions Wal-Mart stores selling made-in-Baghdad leather jackets and other U.S. retailers stocking Iraqi loafers, hand-stitched carpets and pinstripe suits.
Disagreements among Americans about how to deal with Iraq's government-run businesses began shortly after U.S. forces arrived in Baghdad in April 2003. The first U.S. adviser to Iraq's Ministry of Industry and Minerals, retired ambassador Timothy Carney, wanted to reopen many of the country's 192 state-owned factories, which, according to the World Bank, employed more than 500,000 people before the war.

"But the U.S. occupation administrator, L. Paul Bremer, deemed that to be bad economic policy. Many factories had produced substandard goods before the war and had since been looted. Fixing them would cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Bremer wanted private investors to buy the factories, even as workers continued to be paid to stave off hardship.

Found on Cursor.org