“Pork barrel” may perhaps come across as supremely insensitive in the Iraqi context and yet this very American expression may be the best way of explaining the political compromise that facilitated the passage of the 2010 budget in the Iraqi parliament yesterday.The key to understanding at least some of the underlying dynamic here is hidden in article 43 of the new budget law, which specifies special rates of added income for a number of Iraqi governorates according to their economic structure… Full story here.
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