http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20031024/lf_nm/iraq_businessmen_dc_1 "Issa echoes the frustration and disappointment of many Iraqi businessmen in this sprawling city where communications remain difficult and fear rules the streets. Six months after the fall of Baghdad, much of the initial euphoria has evaporated, and though some things have improved, the pace of change is slower than expected. Businessmen willing to swallow their national pride in the hope that the U.S.-led occupation would at least generate billions of dollars in work for Iraqis are increasingly disillusioned. Iraqis complain that the U.S.-led authorities in Iraq are not learning fast enough how to deal with the country they invaded. They say there is not enough reliance on local know-how, too many back-door deals and thinly spread contracts. Middlemen are thriving, but there is little access to U.S. contractors, and local businesses complain that foreign firms are being favored. "You will not find anyone more capitalist than I am," said Faisal al-Kedairy, chief executive of Dofar Pharmaceutical Industries. His family once plied trade routes from the Gulf to India for the British empire." I'm actually pretty ambivalent about this. The last paragraph here is particularly telling: we don't need another colonial elite colluding with the occupiers in exploiting Iraq's natural resources. And certainly it's not what the majority of Iraqis need. But then, the alternative (and what is likely to occur) will be worse. Multinational elites exploiting Iraq's natural resources at the expense of ALL Iraqis! Beautiful.