Iraq’s First Public Budget

On July 7, 2003, Ambassador L. Paul Bremer announced to the Iraqi people and the world a national budget for Iraq for the remainder of 2003. The adoption and publication of a budget is an important step for a country where budgets have traditionally been closely guarded state secrets and it was a crime to report on them.

This brief from the Iraq Revenue Watch project of the Open Society Central Eurasia Project summarizes the main points of Iraq’s 2003 budget and provides recommendations on how to make the budgetary process more transparent and participatory. Also provided in PDF format is the official July-December 2003 budget for the Republic of Iraq.