Chapter seven The political economy of military expenditure in Iraq during the war

In chapter six some aspects of the militarization of Iraq during the 1973–8 period were noted. It was shown that Iraq, in contrast to Iran, had not gone for a military build-up at break neck speed. Indeed, we demonstrated that both the defence- and arms-imports burden ratios had fallen during this period. This was so, as military expenditure (Milex) had not increased as fast as the GDP in the period under consideration.