Imperial Life In The Emerald City

Imperial Life in te Emerald City:
Inside Iraq's Green Zone

Rajiv Chandrasekaran

This is a highly readable account of the first three years of the Iraq War. The book covers all the diplomatic wrangling that went on behind the scenes during Gen. Jay Garner's and L. Paul Bremer's stewardship of Iraq -- and how they fell flat on their faces. Even disgraced New York police chief Bernie Kerick makes an appearance as head of Iraq's failed police training system.

If you want to know how we got to where we are in Iraq, this book is invaluable. From Bremer's (apparently unilateral) decision to disband the Iraqi military to why privatization of Iraq's state-run industries failed, Chandrasekaran covers it all.

In addition to the heavy stuff, what I really liked about this book were the vignettes of what it was like to live in the Green Zone interspersed throughout. It gives you a really good feel for the secluded life our diplomats live in during their stints in Iraq. And he gives you a good account of the kinds of people recruited for duty in Iraq. Like the young Republican, just out of college, put in charge of Iraq's stock market. In fact, most of the guys and gals in Iraq were young Republican staffers,

CPA staffers weren't worried about employment prospects after Baghdad, "Oh, I'll just work on the campaign" -- the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign -- several told me.

"I'm not here for the Iraqis," one staffer said, "I'm here for George Bush."

That's an example of what went wrong over there; not enough experienced experts and diplomats and too many young, idealistic Republican staffers eager to remake Iraq into a Republican paradise, rather than work with the Iraqi's to build a country in which they were happy to live.

Chandrasekaran wrote an important and very readable book. I highly recommend it.