The Gold Diggers of Baghdad

[Kellanved]

While political power in the new Iraq is becoming a hotly contested commodity, Iraqi clans and foreign pioneers are in the process of rebuilding the country's economy. They lack power, money and security, but at some point they plan to be the winners in this war.

On a side street in Baghdad, in the labyrinthine Karrada business district, a dark limousine rolls across the sidewalk. The car stops at Number 124, and a short, stocky man emerges from the cool, air-conditioned interior of the vehicle. He presses a silver telephone to his ear. The wrist holding the phone is adorned by a gold Rolex watch, a dozen diamonds encircling its face. The man enters the building and strides through a marble entry hall. His name is written in gold letters on the wall.

Chalil Abd al-Wahhab al-Bunnia walks past a row of men holding Kalashnikov guns, then ascends to the second floor, where people sit in a long hallway, vying for his attention. Bunnia walks past the waiting crowd like a president inspecting a parade.
Thus begins a day in the life of a crown prince, a man preparing for the moment in which he will assume the helm of one Iraq's wealthiest families. When his father decides that the time has come, Chalil Abd al-Wahhab al-Bunnia will rise to the top of a century-old business dynasty established in 1910 by Mahmud Hadj al-Bunnia, a rice merchant. His grandson will continue the family business as a conglomerate that builds bridges, manufactures chewing gum, sells BMWs, bottles Pepsi-Cola, breeds cattle, purifies drinking water, and produces pesticides. It is difficult to spend a day in Iraq without adding to the wealth of the Bunnias.
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http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/english/0,1518,306166,00.html

[teryang]

1. interesting stories

Which need to be viewed against the CPA fiscal corruption. The reconstruction funds 18 billion aren't being spent. The American contractors are stripping Iraq of its oil money without accounting for it.