Dream time in Iraq as politicians hand out dinars

IT is a politician’s dream: Handing out cold, hard cash to people on the street as they plead for help. Iraq’s prime minister has been doing just that in recent weeks, doling out Iraqi dinars as an aide keeps a tally.

The handouts by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and a handful of other top officials are authorised, as long as each goes no higher than about $8,000 (€5,000), and the same people don’t get them twice. Aides say they are meant merely to ease the pain a bit, and are motivated by a belief that better conditions will lead to more security.

The cash handouts are just one small — if eye-catching — part of a huge investment push this summer by Iraq’s government. The aim is to rebuild basic services and jump-start Iraq’s damaged economy by quickly distributing as much of the country’s glut of oil revenue as possible. US officials and a fed-up American public are urging exactly that — for Iraq to spend its own money, not America’s, to rebuild the country now that violence has eased.

Yet the new Iraqi effort runs a high risk of failure.

“Money is not a problem,” al-Maliki told a recent gathering of tribal chiefs in the southern city of Basra, after government forces had defeated Shi’ite extremists there.

“But we must put it in honest hands to spend.”

The United States has been doling out cash itself, most effectively to former Sunni militants who switched sides to fight al-Qaida. The military has also provided money and assistance to projects like fixing damaged roads in the Shi’ite enclave of Sadr City after battles there.

Yet most recent big spending announcements have been Iraqi: $100 million to rebuild Sadr City; another $100m to the Shi’ite city of Basra after fighting there; $100m for another southern Shi’ite town, Amarah; and $83m to help internal refugees return home.