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Oh come on, she was just saying that since he talked with John Bolton, he probably had the 60% number right.

However, there is no evidence that John Bolton has ever said unemployment in Iraq is 60%, or that Rudy got that number from John Bolton. That was complete speculation, and probably wrong.

the nationwide unemployment in Iraq is not 60%. I’ve seen the 60% number somewhere, and my guess is Rudy saw it as well, but misapplied it to the entire country.

He is still correct that a country with high unemployment will be an unstable country.

Based on some quick googling, it appears there is no concensus on the Iraq unemployment rate:

• Rudy:                                     60%
• Al Jazeera                                70%
• Iraq Study Group (late 2006)              20% to 60%
• Brookings Institute (Feb 2007)            33% (down from 50% in 2003)
• CIA World Fact Book (2005)                25% to 30%
• Iraqi Ministry of Planning                30%
• Iraqi Ministry of Social Affairs          48%
• UN World Food Program (2005)              13.4%
• Central Organization for Statistics and   18% ("underemployment" at 34%)
  Information Technology (COSIT) July 2006

Those who quote high numbers seem to be either promoting a story of destruction by the US (e.g. Al Jazeera) or are promoting more foreign investment in Iraq. With Rudy's emphasis on rebuilding, my guess is he will be strongly in the latter group (as will be his campaign donors).

This video clip from last year showed that he was most focused on the building effort. "If you ask me 'What am I worried about going wrong'... it's not the Clear part... it's not the Hold part... I'm more worried about the build part... Are we going to get Iranians actively involved... " (note: he does get a little confused as he refers to Iranians, not Iraqis... minor detail.)