Several hundred Kuwaiti trucks a day roll over the Abdaly border crossing into Iraq, where the containers are then transferred onto Iraqi vehicles for the onward journey. Meanwhile, at the Safwan border crossing, only 40 minutes away by car, over 1,000 trucks a day pass through the Virginia-Hobari military camp to enter Iraq. Such a difference is not an indicator of Iraq’s economic particularities or the security situation. Trade with other immediate neighbors — Syria, Turkey, and Iran in particular — is resurging, with Tehran and Damascus benefiting the most. What this disparity really shows is that nearly five years after the invasion of Iraq, Kuwaiti cross-border trade is still predominantly traffic for the US military and associated dependents. This reality runs against the grain of one of the expected economic spin-offs of the overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime, that Kuwait would become the Gulf’s logistical hub to access
