On Why Iraq — With 17 Large Cement Factories And A Strong Cement Export History — Is Now Importing The Stuff

Social justice activist Naomi Klein appeared on Democracy Now yesterday to elaborate on her recent article in Harpers Magazine (“Baghdad Year Zero: Pillaging Iraq in Pursuit of a Neocon Utopia.”). Describing the “economic front” of the war, she casts light on why so little of the $18.4 billion in redevelopment funds have been allocated in Iraq, and why so little reconstruction has taken place. Her contention is that a privatization agenda effectively disenfranchises Iraqi’s from participation in their own economy. (Here’s a summary and debate on the article at Internet Infidel’s.)

The video segment is almost 26 minutes long. The part with Naomi Klein begins 2:30 into the clip and runs eight minutes. The balance of the clip, by the way, deals with a film that Klein and her husband, Avi Lewis, have just finished called “The Take” about how plant workers in Argentina reclaimed a factory that had worked in that had been shut down in the government economic collapse.

Real Player clip: 128k; 256k

(clip: democracynow.org)