Profile: Ahmad al Mukhtar

Ahmad al Mukhtar is appointed as director of foreign relations in Iraq’s Ministry of Trade. One of his tasks will be to push for Iraq’s inclusion into the World Trade Organization. Al Mukhtar, who has no background in economics and whose previous job was reading the English-language news on television, shares Washington’s view that Iraq needs a market-based economy and that Iraqis need to be weaned from their dependence on the state. According to Al Mukhtar, Iraqis “are lazy. The Iraqis by nature, they are very dependent…. They will have to depend on themselves, it is the only way to survive in the world today.” [Harper's, 9/24/2004]