Imperial Life in the Emerald City
Rajiv Chandrasekaran
From a walled-off enclave of towering plants, smart villas and sparkling swimming pools, the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority attempted to rule Iraq in the first twelve months after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. This work tells the story of this ill-prepared attempt to build American democracy in a war-torn Middle Eastern country.
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Posted by drew_gummerson@abctales.com (1 year ago ) This book follows the year between 2003 and 2004 when American forces occupied Iraq and the country was under the authority of the CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority). The Emerald City of the title is the Green Zone within central Baghdad - the walled central enclave in which Saddam and his nearest cronies had lived.
It was here that the Americans lived and planned to make Iraq into a Western style democracy. Unelected representives were put in charge of each part of Iraqi life, health, traffic, the army, power generation, and so on and they had a year to shape them. This was the neo-con dream. Each member was carefully vetted to make sure they fitted in with Bush's vision.
Of course, it turned into a fiasco.
People who would have been good for the job, people with experience of post-conflict situations were looked over again and again in favour of neo con Republicans.
So, the new health minister arrives. He decides he wants to put money into an anti-smoking campaign. At this stage hospitals have no beds, power, medicines.
New traffic laws are drawn up based on the traffic codes of the state of Maryland. There are no trained police to enforce them. No traffic lights work.
They decide they will privatise all of Iraq's industries despite the fact that it is going against the Geneva convention.
The army is disbanded at the stroke of a pen. This puts 400,000 people out of work in a day. When asked a month later where they've gone. "They're now in the insurgency."
Very quickly things unravel. Staffers are soon unable to leave the Green Zone. All reconstruction work comes to a halt. Only 2% of the 18 billion dollars allocated to Iraq is spent. Civil war breaks out.
Iraq was an American neo-con dream. They didn't take into consideration what Iraqi people wanted. Obviously they believed they were doing good and there are wonderful stories in here too of people doing good - these are usually soldiers.
It was always supreme arrogance. Third party companies were brought in to train the new Iraqi army. They were then sent out with the Americans. Was it any surprise when they mutineed? They didn't want to fight their own people.
The book won this year's Samuel Johnson Prize. Well deserved.
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UML is an almost mind-meltingly boring... said captainmcdan...