BAGHDAD — The crowded sidewalks along Sanaa Street offer one picture of Iraq's economy, a bustling entrepreneurial mecca that's a cross between Silicon Valley and the HBO western "Deadwood," where the young and ambitious can make their fortunes if they're not shot dead first.
The staid hallways of the Interior Ministry's residency office show another glimpse. Here, idle men and women shuffle papers and look ambivalent as desperate foreign visitors trudge from office to office in search of the elusive stamp that will let them stay in Iraq.
Umm al Shabab, a sleepy farming village along the Euphrates River, shows yet another side of Iraq's patchwork economy: Sharecroppers use ancient tools to plow the last bits of wheat and barley from the tired soil.
Taken as a whole, Iraq's economic landscape remains wasteful and primitive, with a touch of the postmodern, a touch of the feudal and a heavy dose of tedious state bureaucracy that sucks up much of the country's resources and energy.
Analysts estimate that Iraq's gross domestic product grew from $20.5 billion in 2002 to $29.3 billion last year, and President Bush has touted the visible signs of economic vitality, such as consumer sales and private business start-ups. But analysts believe these stirrings have had a limited effect, thanks to a lack of basic infrastructure and decades of neglect.
Although American officials in Baghdad recently said Iraq's economy grew between 3% and 4% in 2005, one commercial service, the Economist Intelligence Unit, said Iraq's GDP fell 3% in 2005, though it predicted that it would rise in 2006.
"To be fundamentally optimistic would be to go too far," Michael O'Hanlon, senior fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institution, said of the Iraqi economy. "The economy is only changing very gradually. In 2005, Iraq was treading water, with a slight forward motion. 2006 will be largely the same; the insurgency will impede the recovery."
U.S. officials at a recent briefing in Baghdad said Iraq's December election of a four-year government would bring the stability necessary to improve economic conditions. More than $18 billion in U.S. funds have been allocated for relief and reconstruction.
On a recent helicopter tour of Baghdad, American officials pointed to a water treatment plant, the Baghdad International Airport terminal, the Ministry of Environment building, two electrical power plants as well as a police academy to show that U.S. reconstruction money was being put to good use.
