Rebuilding Iraq

This fairly basic Iraq article has at least one graft I'd like to point out:

"Some observers worry that instead of the many capital-intensive projects being promoted in exhibitions and conferences in neighbouring countries to attract foreign companies, there should be a labour-intensive public works programme launched in Iraq itself.

"Such a programme could utilise available small- and medium-sized Iraqi engineering and construction companies and the tens of thousands of unemployed professionals and workers to rebuild the roads and schools and other public facilities that were neglected by the previous regime and lacked maintenance because of the UN’s sanctions regime."

The Bush administration is trying to rebuild the Iraqi economy from the top down, bringing in global corporations to provide jobs and mobilize Iraqi resources for the world economy. However, I tend to believe that economic prosperity is best built from the ground up, and that empowering local Iraqis to undertake their own reconstruction has better long-term prospects for success. The economic models may show that corporations can do something more efficiently, but human beings tend not to follow neat models. What if high unemployment continues to lead to rioting? What if the corporations set up infrastructures in a way that suits themselves? And what about the popular view of such corporations as neocolonial looters, against whom resistance can be justified? I'd feel much better with a small business or labor rights approach to things.