From today’s Los Angeles Times:
“Business is better than previous years,” said Saleh Abed, 34, a Baghdad clothing wholesaler. “Although there is terrorism and the country is going through a very rough time, there is some kind of stability. We have an army. We have police. We have a constitution….” Even in violence-scarred stretches of the country, many merchants and consumers reported increased spending. The northern city of Samarra, for example, has been subjected to two large U.S.-led counterinsurgency operations over the last 15 months and recently was surrounded by a huge berm built to keep out militants…. “This is because of the relative security and stability this month in Samarra,” he said. “This increases the desire of people to go shopping.” …Douri said his profit margin had jumped to 25% from 10% because of lower taxes that enabled him to charge customers less for better products. Salaries for state employees, the bulk of Iraq’s workforce, also have increased sharply. Mohammed Qais Nouri, a 38-year-old Samarra traffic cop, said his pay had increased from $20 a month before the U.S.-led invasion of March 2003 to between $500 and $600 a month now. “Before, I used to worry about buying clothes for Eid,” he said. “Now it’s easy to get my four children whatever they want.”
