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Monisha Bansal en CNSNews.com:

Despite the massive disruption from the U.S.-led effort to oust Saddam Hussein from power in 2003 and the dozens of terrorist attacks that followed, the Iraqi economy is progressing and the political system is meeting expectations, according to Iraq’s minister of finance.

“I take issue with those who focus on conflicts,” Ali Abdul Ameer Allawi said at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., Wednesday, one day after a video aired containing threats by al Qaeda’s top terrorist in Iraq - Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - against U.S. and coalition forces as well as Iraq’s fledgling government.

Allawi said the Iraqi economy is adapting to the new political order. “All those who talk about the inability of the Iraqi political class to provide acceptable working accommodations ignore the progress that has been achieved,” he said.

The invasion of Iraq and the toppling of the Saddam regime resulted in the “shutdown of much of the central economic administrative structure” in Iraq, according to the CIA World Factbook. “Although a comparatively small amount of capital plant was damaged during the hostilities, looting, insurgent attacks, and sabotage have undermined efforts to rebuild the economy,” the Factbook states.

Allawi acknowledged Wednesday that the U.S. presence in Iraq has opened some of the “fissures, not cracks” in Iraqi society, but argued that the United States did not create the economic and societal problems. “The former regime destroyed a lot of the underpinnings of Iraqi society,” he said.

In spite of the attacks on oil pipelines and the Iraqi infrastructure, hurting the country’s ability to reach energy export volume goals, the CIA Factbook states that “total government revenues have been higher than anticipated due to high oil prices.”

“Once security is established I think Iraq is poised to have great economic success,” Allawi said, adding that “the political process has in fact met a lot of the expectations made of it.”

Iraq’s Economic Progress Overshadowed by Violence. Lee todo en CNSNews.com.