The CPA, Bremer and Year One in Iraq
17 September Washington Post - Ties to GOP Trumped Know-How Among Staff Sent to Rebuild Iraq by Rajiv Chandrasekaran.
Quote:
... The decision to send the loyal and the willing instead of the best and the brightest is now regarded by many people involved in the 3 1/2 -year effort to stabilize and rebuild Iraq as one of the Bush administration's gravest errors. Many of those selected because of their political fidelity spent their time trying to impose a conservative agenda on the postwar occupation that sidetracked more important reconstruction efforts and squandered goodwill among the Iraqi people, according to many people who participated in the reconstruction effort.
The CPA had the power to enact laws, print currency, collect taxes, deploy police and spend Iraq's oil revenue. It had more than 1,500 employees in Baghdad at its height, working under America's viceroy in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, but never released a public roster of its entire staff.
Interviews with scores of former CPA personnel over the past two years depict an organization that was dominated -- and ultimately hobbled -- by administration ideologues...
Imperial Life in the Emerald City
What has journalism come to?
A most interesting article, but one that fails to get some basic facts right. Paul Bremer did, almost always wear coat and tie, but his most common "uniform" was a blue blazer and slacks (often khaki), not a blue suit. Nor did he wear combat boots, but rather - as he specifically points out in his memoir - Timberland boots, a gift from his kids.
The point I would make is that if the author of the article is willing to ignore minor but easily checkable facts, how far is he willing to go to distort important ones? This guy was a Washington Post correspondent in Baghdad, not from the Podunk news!
A good friend and former colleague at the National Defense University worked for Bremer and was certainly able to convince me that the man deserves somewhat better reviews than he has been getting. As his memoir points out, he was clearly right about Moqtada al Sadr - even if he was totally wrong about disbanding the Iraqi armed forces.
Finally, one of my students at American University was one of the "20 somethings" who staffed the CPA. It is a sad reflection on the USG at the time that we were not seeking significantly better qualified folks to run the legally required occupation government. (This is not to take anything away from my student who was among the more qualified of the 20 somethings but few, if any, had the experience to do that demanding job.)
Documenting an expensive way to create an insurgency
Unlike the Guardian article, I wrote brief reviews of Imperial Life and My Life in Iraq, which I found to be interesting side-by-side reading. While I'd like to edit and shorten the original (to paraphrase Twain, I wrote a long review because I didn't have time to write a short time), I've posted the beginning of the review posted on my site to save you the trouble.
I find it sadly interesting that many, outside the SWJ community of course, don't see the connection between the CPA, missed opportunties, and what became of the situation. Or is it just me?
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Rajiv Chandraskaran's Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone is, among other things, instructive on how to create an insurgency through occupation. Yes, you read that right. Chandraskaran shows how reconstruction efforts were short-circuited and really pissed off the population frequently and unerringly. Chandraskaran's portrayal of a period that roughly overlaps the existence of the Coalition Provisional Authority is one of myopic and ignorant staffing, priorities, and execution.
How might insurgencies develop? Read this book to see how the people in the middle ground had their options removed and how extremists and criminals had recruiting opportunities handed to them on silver platters, not to mention plenty of time to refine their own operations as neon warning signs were ignored and dismissed.
Because of their similarity and at the same time contrast, my book review here comments on both Chandraskaran's book and Ambassador L. Paul Bremer's My Year in Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope. Nearly identical in scopy, they are diametrically opposed in their perceptions of reality.
Starting with Imperial Life, Chandraskaran digs into the details like a forensic historian, tearing at the paper castles Bremer and the Administration created for themselves and the American public. He delves into the politics of who was allowed to participate, what information was not shared, and how "loyalists" without appropriate, or in many cases, any experience were placed. Michael Goldfarb, in his New York Times review of the book, hits some of the highlights of Imperial Life, including comparisons between people like the extremely qualified Frederick M. Burkle Jr and who was replaced by the extremely unqualified James K. Haveman Jr for the job of rebuilding Iraq's healthcare (if the importance of healthcare isn't obvious, see the RAND report on the importance of healthcare in 'nation-building').
The difference between these two books is astounding, quite honestly. Bremer, as Goldfarb writes, has apparently "read one C.E.O. memoir too many". An accurate states considering the frequent platitudes Bremer heaps upon himself.
Bremer likes to finish a section on a positive reflection while Chandraskaran finishes with reality, a bit of bad reality. For example, on the disbanding of the Iraqi army, CPA Order No. 2, Bremer concludes with Kurdish leader Jalal Talabini telling him that the "decision to formally 'disband' the old army was the best decision the Coalition made during the our fourteen months in Iraq."
....
Bremer: What We Got Right in Iraq
There's a gmail account for Bremer at the end of the article. Any chance he could be convinced to recollect a bit further for the SWC? A lot of this doesn't make sense, some of it appears to be pure speculation that I'd like to see backed up, and a great deal seems as though he finally lost his bearing and refused to fade to black.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...051102054.html
NO MORE MR. PUNCHING BAG
What We Got Right in Iraq
By L. Paul Bremer
Sunday, May 13, 2007; Page B01
Once conventional wisdom congeals, even facts can't shake it loose. These days, everyone "knows" that the Coalition Provisional Authority made two disastrous decisions at the beginning of the U.S. occupation of Iraq: to vengefully drive members of the Baath Party from public life and to recklessly disband the Iraqi army. The most recent example is former CIA chief George J. Tenet, whose new memoir pillories me for those decisions (even though I don't recall his ever objecting to either call during our numerous conversations in my 14 months leading the CPA). Similar charges are unquestioningly repeated in books and articles. Looking for a neat, simple explanation for our current problems in Iraq, pundits argue that these two steps alienated the formerly ruling Sunnis, created a pool of angry rebels-in-waiting and sparked the insurgency that's raging today. The conventional wisdom is as firm here as it gets. It's also dead wrong...
Like most Americans, I am disappointed by the difficulties the nation has encountered after our quick 2003 victory over Saddam Hussein. But the U.S.-led coalition was absolutely right to strip away the apparatus of a particularly odious tyranny. Hussein modeled his regime after Adolf Hitler's, which controlled the German people with two main instruments: the Nazi Party and the Reich's security services. We had no choice but to rid Iraq of the country's equivalent organizations to give it any chance at a brighter future.
What Bremer said in his book...
Mr Bremer has reiterated what he said in his book about the de-baathification. I believe that he makes this case as well as acknowledging the mistake of handing that process over to the Iraqis prematurely. With regard to disbanding the army, his case is weaker. First, he adds a number of layers to what he said in the book. Second, he neglects to point out that his predecessor, LTG Jay Garner, and his staff were in contact with the officers of the regular Iraqi army. Garner's point man on this was COL Paul Hughes. Paul told me that Bremer cut the rug out from under ORHA's plan with disastrous results. Hughes today is at the US Institute of Peace and was one of the senior staffers on the Iraq Study Group.
I had heard Bremer's position articulated by one of his senior staffers, Dr. William J. Olson, now at the DOD regional center for Near East and South Asia. While I have a lot of respect for Bill, my sense at the time of these conversations was that Paul had it closer to right. Bremer's expanded explanation seems to me to be one that is seeking justification for a poor policy decision after the fact, although I could be wrong.
What Bremer Got Wrong in Iraq
16 May Washington Post commentary - What Bremer Got Wrong in Iraq by Nir Rosen.
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I arrived in Iraq before L. Paul Bremer arrived in May 2003 and stayed on long after his ignominious and furtive departure in June 2004 -- long enough to see the tragic consequences of his policies in Iraq. So I was disappointed by the indignant lack of repentance on full display in his Outlook article on Sunday.
In it, the former head of the Coalition Provisional Authority argues that he "was absolutely right to strip away the apparatus of a particularly odious tyranny," including the Baath Party and the Iraqi army. He complains about "critics who've never spent time in Iraq" and "don't understand its complexities." But Bremer himself never understood Iraq, knew no Arabic, had no experience in the Middle East and made no effort to educate himself -- as his statements clearly show...
