Buy Iraqi! U.S. wants you to pitch in a little more than your taxes to fund chaos in Iraq

[ProSense]

New rebuilding slogan: This Christmas, buy Iraqi

By Stephen Farrell Published: August 13, 2007

BAGHDAD: first" approach to security, but some see the effort as a throwback to the inefficiencies under Saddam Hussein.

Iraqi and U.S. officials think Iraq's ailing economy could get a kick-start from U.S. consumers interested in giving Iraqi-made clothes as Christmas presents.

"We are hoping if everything goes well, by Thanksgiving and Christmas we will have from the Mosul factory teenage clothing, and from the Najaf factory ready-made suits, and from the leather industries here, leather jackets, and so on," Sami al-Araji, the deputy industry minister, said Sunday during the announcement of a plan to put state industries back to work.

Araji said a U.S. team led by Paul Brinkley, the deputy under secretary of defense for business transformation in Iraq, was in discussions with major U.S. retailers like Sears, Wal-Mart and J. C. Penney to have the clothing on sale in some major cities by the holiday season.

The move into U.S. markets would be mainly symbolic, he said, involving 10,000 to 12,000 leather jackets, 20,000 to 25,000 suits priced around $80 to $90, and a similar number of garments for teenagers.

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Despite the ministers' enthusiasm, some U.S. officials urged caution. A senior U.S. Embassy official said last week: "You have to look on a case-by-case basis. One of the interesting trade-offs that we face in looking at these enterprises is that they all tended to be very large consumers of electricity, and this is one of the real tensions.

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[unhappycamper]

1. Looks like Karen Huges is earning her money!

:thumbsup: :sarcasm:

[iconoclastic cat]

2. Gee, those wouldn't be child-labor sweatshops, would they? nt

[aquart]

3. Buy Iraqi, NOT American?

Thanks, George.

[ellenfl]

4. un-freaking-believable. how about selling american

made clothing to iraq for the benefit of hurricane katrina victims? oh, right, there IS no american made clothing anymore. :eyes:

ellen fl

[jimshoes]

5. No thanks

I don't care if they are giving them away.

[OneMoreDemocrat]

6. Actually....

If the proceeds would actually go into the Iraqi economy, and create actual (not sweatshop) jobs for real Iraqis, then I have no problem buying Iraqi.

The people of Iraq need all the help they can get, and so far the only help we've given them has been war and disaster and death, and it hasn't exactly helped much.

[ProSense]

7. Kick! n/t

[VP505]

8. Great,

now we can all have one of those $5.00 rugs and a leather jacket too.