First of all, there's not much to privatize outside Oil. Iraq doesn't have many other industries. 95% of the revenue was provided by oil. The telephone company got privatized, whoop-de-do. Both the telephone and electric sector were in such poor condition, there wasn't much to privatize. You're acting like this is the former USSR where a lot of people struck gold by buying up former state industries for next to nothing. It is not.
Iraqi's are more sensitive about the $150 billion in external debt racked up by an unelected dictator. Piling another $20 billion on via an unelected council is not likely to sit well.
All of the non-oil state enterprises, together, probably aren't worth a one billion dollars, so I am not sure your proposition "stop privitization, loan them money, rather than keep privization, give money" is a net gain for the Iraqis.
One only needs to look at the massive success of China in recent years to see that privatization and foreign investment and ownership of dosmetic industries is far better than more IMF/WorldBank loans.
You aren't letting leftwing anti-capitalist sentiment cloud your anti-privatization view are you? You really think letting the power and phone industries remain run by an incompetent and newborn government is better in the shorterm than having modern foreign countries come in and build utility infrastructure? You think giving the IGC a $20 billion loan to do it themselves is going to get the power back on in Baghdad sooner?
After Iraq gets back on their feet, if they want state ownership, they can buy back the utilities with oil revenue, or they can charge high land use rights for pipeline, electric, and other resource usage. This is certainly the better scenario than a loan. With privatization, Iraq gets a modern infrastructure built by foreign countries, with the option to buy back. With a loan, they have to pay back, whether or not the country's infrastructure is working. WIth privatization, if the foreign built utilities suck, they simply won't buy them back, the foreign companies will lose out, as the government funds their own dosmetic projects out of the oil revenues.
Either way, the major risk takers here are the foreign investors, not the Iraqi people. I feel an unelected council assuming loans on behalf of the people is far worse than an unelected council accepting foreign grants and foreign investment to rebuild the country. Ok, so the Iraqi's won't own the foreign infrastructure that is built on their behalf, but it got build on grants and risky investments, and they have the option of granting building rights to local competitors in the future and unfavorable licensing fees or taxes on foreign subsidaries.
