Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone

I just finished reading a book by a Washington Post reporter Rajiv Chandrasekaran called Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone. The book details the aftermath of the Iraqi invasion by the Americans and delves into their policies to rebuild the country as a mini-America. One of the first groups of Americans in was the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Aid, most of whom were grossly unqualified and were given inadequate resources. The ORHA was then reorganized to form the Coalition Provisional Authority and L. Paul Bremer III was appointed the viceroy.

The most striking aspect of the book is that it illustrates just how much the Bush administration valued loyalty over competence. Applicants for CPA positions were often asked questions regarding their party affiliations, opinions on Roe v. Wade and so on. Consequently, important tasks were given to people eminently unsuitable for them. For instance, a 24-year-old with no prior experience in finance was put in charge of reopening the Iraqi Stock Market. His attempts to bring in state-of-the-art equipment and to enforce new laws failed miserably and eventually, the Iraqis reverted to their whiteboards and hand-written notes. The mishandling of the State-owned companies is another example. Some of the CPA staff had come to the conclusion that only a handful of the 48 State-owned companies were viable and that the most efficient use of their small budget would be to allocate it to these companies. Paul McPherson, Bremer's economist, believed otherwise. He decided to use the money in Iraqi banks to pay off private depositors and State-owned companies would start with a clean slate. $60 million was to be distributed among the 48 state companies. Unfortunately, the companies which were doing better and had some money to be used as start up capital lost it all, and companies which were heavily in debt were in the clear.

The book also makes the hubris and delusions prevalent in the Bush administration all too clear. Clearly, Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Wolfowitz made no attempt to understand the country they were invading and the people they were "liberating." They thought they would be done in a few weeks at most and would be welcomed by the Iraqis. They failed to keep their promises, and yet after the botched 2005 elections, when Mr. Bremer handed over sovereignty to the Iraqis, he called the CPA's time in Iraq a success. Now Iraq lacks a decent supply of electricity and water, adequate health care, acceptable educational institutions, and most importantly security. The country is in the midst of a civil war, there is a mass exodus of Iraqis from the country and despite glaring evidence to the contrary, no admission of error is forthcoming from the administration.

I highly recommend this book. As distressing and disappointing as the information is, it is quite an eye-opener. The breathtaking stupidity of some of Mr. Bremer's beliefs and policies, the prevalent bureaucracy, the self-serving agendas and the incomprehensible inflexibility to adapt to changing circumstances make it crystal clear that Operation Iraqi Freedom was doomed from the very beginning.

PS - In honor of the approaching tax deadline, a little tidbit I picked up on Jon Stewart's The Daily Show is that $8.8 billion of cash (in bricks of paper money) that was sent for reconstruction efforts went missing, and Mr. Bremer, who was still in Iraq then, is unable to account for it. $8.8 billion of your tax money...MISSING...think about that for a while!