UFPPC (www.ufppc.org) (www.ufppc.org) Digging Deeper XXIX: April 16, 2007, 7:00 p.m. Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006). Map of the Green Zone. Prologue. June 2004 vignette of a Green Zone where “[m]ost people in the palace had simply given up” (4). John Agresto, Agresto, higher ed adviser, calls himself “a neoconservative who’s been mugged by reality” (5). PART ONE—BUILDING THE BUBBLE Ch. 1: Versailles on the Tigris. Halliburtonsupplied American fare in the cafeteria (9-12). Green Zone was a “Little America” where what could be outsourced was and Iraqi laws and customs didn’t didn’t apply (12-17). Michael Schroeder, CPA CPA “essential-services analyst,” asks Chandrasekaran “what’s it like out there” in Baghdad (17-20). Staffers ignore local news of suicide bombings (20-21). Mahmud Ahmed, Ahmed, Iraqi translator for U.S. Army (21-24). Main information source: source: mainstream media. (2426). Ch. 2: A Deer in the Headlights. First glimpse in April 2003 (26-28). Jay Garner Garner and the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA), (ORHA), pre-war pre-war (28-36). Cheney has Thomas Warrick, the State Dept. employee who organized the Future of Iraq Project, removed from Garner’s team because he’s considered a threat to Chalabi (36-37). Vignette: Uday’s menagerie (38-39). Ch. 3: You’re in Charge! Garner prevails on military to get him & ORHA to Baghdad two weeks after its fall (40-42). Looking for a palace to serve as headquarters, an Army reservist is directed by Special Forces Forces soldiers to the Republican palace (43-44). Tim Carney Carney faces the problem of whether to employ Baathists (44-49). Carney sees impending failure early on (49-51). White House blocks political transition plan, has none of its own (51-54). L. Paul Paul (Jerry) Bremer III, III, suggested by Cheney’s office, “selected by the president” to “take charge” (54-55). Vignette: courtship in the Green Zone (56-57). Ch. 4: Control Freak. June 2003: “I found myself believing in” Bremer, who identifies economic reform as his top priority (62; 58-63). Kissinger calls Bremer “a control freak” (63). Insists on independence from “the interagency process” and makes all decisions himself (63-
65). In 2002 Director & Boards article stresses importance of “quick decisive action” in a crisis (65-66). Bremer “a French-trained chef who had taught cooking classes in Vermont Vermont and once spent thirty-six hours making a sauce. His antipathy toward French French government policy on Iraq didn’t diminish his love of French cuisine, the French language, or the French French countryside. He owned a house in France, France, and he was, perhaps, the only Bush appointee to have studied at the Institut d’études politiques (Sciences-Po) in Paris” Paris” (67). Background: Phillips Andover, Yale (B.A. History, 1963), Harvard (M.B.A.), Foreign Service; special asst. to Kissinger; with wi th his wife, Frances Frances (‘Francie’) Winfield, converted to Catholicism in 1994 (6768). De-Baathification, ordered ordered by Bremer on his fourth day in Iraq (68-73). On his eleventh eleventh day, dissolution of Iraqi army, air force, navy, ministry of defense and intelligence service (73-77). Bremer decides decides there will be no Iraiq Iraiq interim government; instead, he sets up a council and says he will stay till a new constitution leads to new elections and the installation of a new government (77-79). Sistani issues fatwa that Iraqi constitution must be written by elected representatives (79-80). Vignette: Republican zealots dominate in the Green Zone (81-82). Ch. 5: Who Are These People? Before the war, Baghdad “one of the world’s safest cities” (83). Former NYC NYC Police Chief Bernie Kerick’s Kerick’s three months in Baghdad (83-90). James O’Beirne, White House liaison at the Pentagon, screens appointees for political opinions, who are often funneled to CPA by the Heritage Foundation (91-94). A 24-year-old 24-year-old sent by White House sent to take charge of new stock exchange (94-99). Vignette: Iraqi making pizza near Green Zone, but no American customers (100-01). Ch. 6: We Need to Rethink This. Problems of the State Company for Vegetable Oils (10205). Glenn Corliss, post-9/11 Army Army volunteer with Wall Street background, assigned to analyze 150 Iraqi factories (106-10). Corliss recommends thirteen companies be assisted with money and consultants (110-14). FreeFreemarket zealot (and former Michigan State Univ. president) Peter McPherson pushes privatization; frustrated by legal and practical
obstacles, he pursues what he calls “shrinkage”—elimination of subsidies, and even theft of company assets; also nullifies intragovernment debt, effectively emptying state enterprises bank accounts (114-23). McPherson’s other reforms: elimination of import duties, cutting tax rate, allowing 100% foreign ownership of businesses (124-25). Thomas Foley, Bush’s classmate at Harvard Business School, takes over private-sector development, saying “I don’t give a shit about international law” (126). Vignette: Gen. Kimmitt says low-flying helicopters are “the sound of freedom” at Feb. 25, 2004 CPA press briefing (127). Ch. 7: Bring a Duffel Bag. Daniel Senor, master of spin, ran “Stratcomm,” the CPA’s public relations relations office (128-31). Don North, assigned to set up independent TV station in Iraq by Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), a defense contractor, but the CPA subverts it by using it for propaganda (131-36). Custer Battles, a neophyte operation, wins $16m contract to guard Baghdad’s airport, then fleeces government (136-42). Ben Thomas uses soft-point bullets as Custer Battles bodyguard; military has no way of enforcing ban (142-46). Vignette: reading material about Iraq (147). Ch. 8: A Yearning for Old Times. Saddam kept Baghdad supplied with electricity (14850). U.S. misestimates Iraq’s generating capacity by 25% (150-51). Bremer alienates Baghdadis by deciding power shoul d be shared among Iraqis equally (152-53). Steve Browning of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers given restoring electrical production to prewar levels in two months as priority, and succeeds, only five days late (154-56). Bremer leading charge, wins a $18.4b supplemental appropriation for Iraqi infrastructure, but the budget is built top-down (156-62). Bremer develops economic and political plans for transition, continues to ignore Sistani (162-65). Plans of John Agresto, retired St. John’s College president, to overhaul Iraq’s university system (165-69). “Agresto knew next to nothing about Iraq’s educational system. Even after he was selected, the former professor didn’t read a single book about Iraq. ‘I wanted to come here with as open a mind as I could have,’ he said. ‘I’d much rather learn firsthand than have i t filtered to me by an author’” (166). PART TWO—SHATTERED DREAMS
Ch. 9: Let This Be Over. The Al-Rasheed Hotel (173-74). Oct. 26, 2003, rocket attack on the hotel while Wolfowitz is visiting, gravely injuring Col. Elias Nimmer (174-79). [The bombing of U.N. headquarters that killed envoy Sérgio Vieira de Mello is mentioned only in a single sentence, with no date given (it happened on Aug. 19, 2003) (p. 176).] Background of the attack, which came fifteen hours after the Fourteenth of July Bridge was reopened and Maj. Gen. Martin Dempsey announced “safety and security have been achieved” in Baghdad (179-80). CPA staff spooked by attack on hotel and subsequent mortar attacks on Green Zone (180-83). Vignette: In May 2004, CPA staffers take flight when they hear gunfire from a celebration of Iraq’s 3-1 victory over Saudi Arabia, earning a berth at the Olympics (184). Ch. 10: The Plan Unravels. Bremer, just back from Washington, meets with Governing Council on Nov. Nov. 15, 2003 (185-86). Bremer’s plan ran aground on the question o f electing a constituent assembly (186-91). Robert Blackwill persuades White House that Bremer’s plan is too slow; Iraq Stabilization Group formed, Bremer called back for consultations, twice (191-200). A complicated complicated plan using caucuses runs aground when Adel Abdel-Mahdi objects and consults the Grand Ayatollah alSistani, who demands elections; Blackwill goes along, and arranges for Lakhdar Brahimi, a former Algerian foreign minister, to lead a U.N. team to determine whether elections can be held before June 2004; Brahimi decides no, a nd will decide who forms the interim government in consultation with the Governing Council and the CPA (201-07). Vignette: Political cartoons in the bar at Ocean Cliffs, the British housing compound in the Green Zone (208). Ch. 11: A Fool’s Errand. Iraq’s health system put in the hands of James K. Havemann Jr., Jr., a former community health director of a Repubican governor of Michigan, who pursues privatization (209-19). Vignette: the Green Zone’s only wedding (220-22). Ch. 12: We Cannot Continue Like This. Plans for privatization run aground despite neocon enthusiasm enthusiasm (223-28). Jay Hallen, 24year-old year-old enthusiast, enthusias t, undertakes an unsuccessful effort to build “a whole new stock exchange” (229-32). Vignette: U.S. military’s dislike of CPA (233). Ch. 13: Missed Opportunities. Capt. Jerry Smathers, a personal-injury lawyer from
Maryland, undertakes to rewrite Iraq’s new traffic law (234-40). A Transitional Transitional Administrative Law hashed out (240-44). Brahimi names interim government on Jun. 1, 2004 (244-46). Bremer insists on Election Law treating all of Iraq as a single district (246-48). Vignette: Chicken-crossing-road joke (249-50). Ch. 14: Breaking the Rules. A success story: Alex Dehgan succeeds in opening a science center in Baghdad, despite CPA resistance due to the project’s State Dept. provenance (251-55). Bremer’s unfeasible project of disbanding militias evaded with ease by Kurdish peshmerga (255-57). Vignette: Halliburton has cats exterminated in the Green Zone (258-59). Ch. 15: Crazy, If Not Suicidal. Bremer orders Moqtada al-Sadr’s newspaper al-Hawza shut down (260-65). In response to U.S. arrest arrest of his top deputy, al-Sadr unleashes widespread attacks (266-72). Iraqi police and army refuse refuse to fight (272-73). Insurgency responding to effort to avenge deaths in Fallujah of “four American security contractors” led to hold and eventual abandonment of many reconstruction projects and programs (273-77). Vignette: Farewell CPA CPA barbecue in the Green Green Zone (278-79). Ch. 16: A Lot Left To Be Done. John Agresto’s unable to access funds for his
university projects projects (280-83). Agresto believes Bremer magnified ethnic divisions in Iraq (28385), decides the U.S. project was misconceived (286-87). Bremer’s accomplishments seen as broken promises by Iraqis (287-89). AbdelMahdi believes the biggest error was “the occupation itself” (290). After formal end of CPA in private ceremony on Jun. 28, 2004 , Bremer leaves in dual-rotor Chinook helicopter (291-92). Epilogue. One year later, a reunion for CPA staffers in Washington; most are true believers (293-94). Review of the year (294-98). Bush and Bremer acknowledge no errors (298). Acknowledgments. Thanks many anonymous inside sources. Wash. Post colleagues. “Iraqis working as interpreters, drivers, and and guards” guards” (299). Editorial advisers. Notes. 4 pp. Index. 14 pp. A Note about the Author. Bureau chief in Baghdad from Apr. Apr. 2003 to Sept. 2004. Has reported from more than two dozen countries in the Middle East and Africa. Lives in DC. A Note on the Type. Celeste, created in 1994.
