Word: iraq
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Read "How to Leave Iraq...
...Iraq's economic woes stem mainly from the huge drop in the price of oil, which accounts for 90% of the country's revenues. Last summer the price of oil soared to nearly $150 a barrel. Now the price is roughly a third of that, leaving Iraq struggling to fend off a financial collapse within its government. Iraq has an estimated $30 billion in surplus funds generated from oil sales in years past, but that money is dwindling. Iraq expects to run a deficit this year of roughly $20 billion, which could be covered by the surplus funds...
...date the Iraqi government has shown no signs of halting the ongoing program aimed at bringing hundreds of Awakening volunteer fighters onto the government payroll. But the initiative could be under threat nonetheless as Iraq moves to trim its budget amid falling revenues. Already the Iraqi Ministry of Interior, which runs the Awakening program, is scaling back. And signs that the global economic crisis has settled heavily in Iraq are increasingly apparent. (See pictures of the Iraqi revival that is now endangered by the faltering economy...
...worsening revenue picture for the Iraqi government apparently stirred talk among leadership in Baghdad of allowing the export of oil from Kurdish northern Iraq. Kurdistan, as the semi-autonomous region is known, has long sought to export its significant oil reserves. But the central government in Baghdad has always objected to any such move, insisting that Baghdad control the country's oil exports and its revenues. The dispute has proven to be one of the most intractable impasses in Iraqi politics. Early reports of a possible deal buoyed hopes for a breakthrough, but so far no agreement has emerged...
Other sources of revenue have gone dry or are about to. Foreign investors have been slow to spend in Iraq because of the violence and huge uncertainty surrounding the security situation following the U.S. drawdown going forward this summer. U.S. reconstruction funds are dwindling as American troops move to go. And Iraq at present cannot sell government bonds on the international market without risking them becoming entangled in a myriad of reparations lawsuits related to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait...