Did the postmen give up?
Looking through Brookings Iraq Index for something else entirely, I came across this baffling table. The amount of post sent each year in Iraq:
Year Tons of mail 2001 148 tons sent (231 received) 2003 37 tons sent 2004 43 tons sent 2005 54 tons sent
Huh? Use of the postal system is a third of what it was under Saddam? Why on earth would that be the case?
Granted, dodgy statistics are the most likely culprit - the figures are sourced to an article in the New York Times, and its quite likely that the Baath figure is dodgy for some reason or other. Odder still: somehow the Times writer interprets the figures as "evidence of recovery".
Still, it'd be nice to think there's some mystery in those numbers, waiting to be uncovered.