Gotta love it: good news from Iraq

Iraqi Leader Embraces Terror Fight in Speech to Congress - New York Times:

In his half-hour speech, the prime minister made little mention of the casualties in Iraq. Instead, he highlighted the doubling of the gross domestic product over the last three years and improvements in the lives of Iraqis.

Sounds great. Except that the most recent data (2005) in the CIA World Factbook puts Iraq's GDP real growth rate at -3%. By contrast, Syria's GDP real growth rate is 4.5% (that would be +); Iran's, 6.1%; Saudi Arabia's, 6.1%; Israel's, 5.2%; even Lebanon had a positive GDP real growth rate, just barely, at 0.5%.

You don't suppose our boy Maliki is blowing smoke, do you?

At the US Congress. Surely not.

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