Iraq's Economy Much Stronger

On Fox News this evening, there was an interesting story intro by Stuart Varney, Neil Cavuto's stand-in host:

Most agree Iraqis are indeed better off without the murderous regime of Saddam Hussein. But you may be shocked to know how much better off they are economically. The numbers are clear. ...

And, look, we can go through the numbers all day long, unemployment cut in half. The economy is a third larger than it was, 31,000 businesses operating. Can you say flat-out, categorically, Iraqis are much better off economically, financially, than they were just a couple of years ago?

Varney's guest, Thomas Delare, the econ guy at the US embassy in Baghdad, demurred a bit from Varney's enthusiasm, but didn't contradict the host.

That means when you hear stats about unemployment in Iraq at 30 percent quoted as evidence of failure of our mission, you need to put it in the context of unemployment rates of 60 percent under Saddam.

And Delare thinks it's going to get better:

They're -- they're considerably better off. And we believe, next year, 2006, should be a turnaround year, when a new government takes its ... seat, and is in a position to actively pursue the kind of legislation this country needs to get the economy jump-started.