BUSINESS: "Business in Iraq: It's the economy, stupid: American investors attempt to spur Iraq's private sector," The Economist, 18 April 2009.

Good and long overdue piece on Paul Brinkley's Task Force for Business and Stability Operations in Iraq, formed in 2006. It was the Pentagon entity that provided early seed money for Enterra's Development-in-a-Box‚Ñ¢ operations in the K.R.G., where Steve DeAngelis was sort of a one-man version of the Task Force while Brinkley worked the more unstable and dangerous south. Most people heard of Brinkley as the guy trying to restart state-owned enterprises in southern Iraq, but the bigger focus was on foreign direct investment, which reached almost $1B last year and looks to be about $3B this year.

As Steve's gov-side equivalent, Brinkley has done an amazing job--very quietly. Between them, you're talking about the two guys who know the investment side of SysAdmin work better than possibly anybody on the planet.

Steve has interacted with Brinkley a lot in the past. I've been called in (mostly to evangelize audiences) here and there.

Steve and I expect further great things from Brinkley.

Typical of his low, self-effacing profile, Brinkley is not even mentioned in the piece.