Imperial Life in The Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone
by Rajiv Chandrasekaran
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Book Summary Information
Author: Rajiv ChandrasekaranEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-09-04
ISBN: 0307278832
Number of pages: 365
Publisher: Vintage Books
Book Reviews of Imperial Life in The Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone
Book Review: (What) Were They Thinking?
Summary: 5 Stars
Rajiv Chandrasekaran brings depth to the story behind the headlines. He has certainly taken a large body of knowledge and distilled it for easy consumption.
Now I know why stories of reconstruction were so fuzzy and few. Tommy Thompson (Secy of Health and Human Services) provides a photo-op for a new hospital --- opened in the Green Zone but not presented as such. Now I know how Casey (son of Cindy) Sheehan (and 7 others) died --- Bremer closed Moqtada al-Sadr's paper without alerting the US patrols of that area. I learned much more.
This book makes me angry all over again. One of the benefits of this endeavor could have been providing a better life for the Iraqis, but it's like Katrina on a larger scale. Even seasoned disaster or war zone professionals would find this a challenge. Mr. Chandrasekaran describes how people were hired, not because they were qualified, but for their connections, starting with the top, Jerry Bremer was tied to Henry Kissinger.
Did Bremer think that rendering 1/3 of the Iraqi population unemployed was a practical thing? Did Bremer think that changing the food rations (socialism) to debit cards (capitalism) in a country with no phone lines, computers, etc. was a practical thing? Fortunately a firefighter from Buffalo could explain this to him, but he may not have backed down if he hadn't had so many other problems.
The 24 year old hired to open the Iraqi stock exchange impeded its opening by fanciful attempts to copy the US stock exchange technology and regulations and on pages 229 -231, takes credit for its eventual opening in a manner, if not for him could have been done months earlier. This is the template for the attitude expressed by Bremer and others in the Green Zone reunion described at the end of the book.
The actions and the attitudes that spawned them clearly fit the patterns described in Conservatives Without Conscience. Some participants, like John Agresto have a more realistic appraisal of what could have been and what went wrong. Others may never understand. In the meanwhile, the missed opportunity has made life for Iraqis (for insight into this Waiting for an Ordinary Day: The Unraveling of Life in Iraq ) more difficult, and the latest news suggests little change.
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