Less violence, more oil fuel Iraq’s rebound

Ali Bassem plans to start saving for a new car now that the extra money is rolling in.

The Baghdad University architecture professor regards his 75 percent salary increase as a fitting reward for having stayed in Iraq while so many other people of means fled.

The extra dinars in his paycheck, Bassem said, are proof of a tentative step forward from the darkness and violence.

A nationwide increase in public-sector salaries took effect at the end of June for civil servants, from rookies to department heads at public hospitals. The lowest-paid civil servants, who earned $100 a month, now receive at least an extra $16 or so.

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