A booty for the barons of Baghdad
The streets may be troubled, write Adrian Gatton and Clayton Hirst, but Western dollars are about to rain down on an elite group of secretive Iraqi families.
The Independent on Sunday
08 February 2004
The television images portray a bombed-out country with its inhabitants living in crumbling houses close to the poverty line. But away from the allied forces’ patrols and the buildings riddled with bullet holes, a small but powerful group of families is thriving in Iraq. With business contacts throughout the Gulf and the Middle East and extending into Europe, Iraq has developed its own powerful set of oligarchs. The Al-Bunnias, Al- Khudairys and Kubbas have become the region’s own Rockefellers, Gettys and Fords …
Read the rest of the story on The Independent’s website here.
Adrian Gatton 