Basra booms economically now
Guardian:
House prices have doubled in a matter of months. Restaurants are opening alongside the waterside corniche. Oil-rich Kuwaitis are beginning to move in, and trade at the port is booming.
Welcome to Basra.
This is the remarkably rosy picture of life in Iraq's second city outlined by a senior British military figure today.
Major General Barney White-Spunner, just returned from commanding British forces in southern Iraq, claims Basra has been transformed. Less than a year ago, British soldiers were being attacked day and night. A week ago, White-Spunner says, he was having supper in a restaurant on Basra's corniche by the Shatt al-Arab waterway.
"Property prices have more than doubled since March. One house is going for £90,000, a threefold increase," he says, referring to the now desirable stretch of the city's riverbank walkway. He talks of the "return of the diaspora", with Christians and Sunnis coming back to their Shia-dominated city. Soldiers from the new Iraqi national army had recently built a number of Sunni mosques. And it is not only Basrawis buying property - Kuwaitis and others are helping to push up prices.
"The UK is getting close to what we set out to achieve," White-Spunner says, referring to British forces training the Iraqi army's local 14th division and to the Iraqi navy which he describes as "doing a fantastic job".
Basra's port of Umm Qasr is "booming", he says. A total of 30 civilian flights a week now come in to Basra's international airport and 20 major international oil companies are planning to invest in the region.
The optimistic message is reflected in plans now being drawn up in the Ministry of Defence to cut the number of British troops in Basra from 4,000 to just a few hundred in the first half of next year.
...
The Brits cannot take much credit for the boom. Their policy of letting the Sadr militia run it was a disaster for Basra and the Iraqis and it was the Iraqi army with the help of the US Marines that chased the Iranian backed militia out of town.
Iran has to be be watching this transformation with dismay. Iran's style of government was leading to a disaster and freedom is leading to prosperity. The Iranians who cross here for treks to Shia holy sights are going to notice just how miserable the mullahs have made them.
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