Imperial Life in the Emerald City

The past few days I have been reading Imperial Life in the Emerald City by Rajiv Chandrasekaran. The book details life inside the Green Zone in Baghdad after the fall of Sadaam and the lack of a plan to rebuild Iraq.

As I have been reading, I have been unable to count how many times I have said "oh my God", "what the heck", or "what were they thinking". I would say it is probably been 2 to 3 times per page.

For example...

The recruiting process worked fastest when there were no requirements other than political loyalty. When Bremer's budget chief asked for "ten young goofers" to perform administrative tasks, O'Beirne's staff had a list of names at the ready. It included Simone Ledeen, the daughter of neoconservative commentator Michael Ledeen; Casey Wasson, a recent graduate from an evangelical university for home-schooled children, and Todd Baldwin, a legislative aide for Republican senator Rick Santorum. A few days later, all ten received an e-mail from O'Bierne's office. It wasn't until they arrived in Baghdad that they discovered how they had come to the Pentagon's attention: they had all sent their resumes to the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington.

Because of the personnel shortage in Baghdad, six of the goofers were assigned to manage Iraq's $13 billion budget, even though they had no previous financial-management experience. They quickly earned the nickname the "Brat Pack."

When it came down to post-war planning the book seems to lay out two sides on the issue. On one side you had the State Department (Colin Powell) and the CIA that had people with years of experience in the Middle East and in rebuilding. Then you had Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfield, whose principle motivation was to lace Ahmed Chalabi, who did not have a postive reputation around the State Department and CIA, as the new leader in Iraq. Rumsfield used Douglas Feith to coordinate post war planning and the book shows how Cheney and the Pentagon used the experts from the State Department and CIA only when they had to to keep Powell, Condi Rice, and the CIA off their back.

I highly recommend reading this book. If not the entire thing, then just read the first couple chapters. It will give you a better understanding of how much we messed the country of Iraq, how we failed at the most basics aspects of rebuilding the country, and how we turned the civilized nation into a land of chaos.