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Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone
An unprecedented account of life in Baghdad’s Green Zone, a walled-off enclave of towering plants, posh villas, and sparkling swimming pools that was the headquarters for the American occupation of Iraq.
The Washington Post ’s former Baghdad bureau chief Rajiv Chandrasekaran takes us with him into the into a bubble, cut off from wartime realities, where the task of reconstructing a devastated nation competed with the distractions of a Little America—a half-dozen bars stocked with cold beer, a disco where women showed up in hot pants, a movie theater that screened shoot-’em-up films, an all-you-could-eat buffet piled high with pork, a shopping mall that sold pornographic movies, a parking lot filled with shiny new SUVs, and a snappy dry-cleaning service—much of it run by Halliburton. Most Iraqis were barred from entering the Emerald City for fear they would blow it up.
Drawing on hundreds of interviews and internal documents, Chandrasekaran tells the story of the people and ideas that inhabited the Green Zone during the occupation, from the imperial viceroy L. Paul Bremer III to the fleet of twentysomethings hired to implement the idea that Americans could build a Jeffersonian democracy in an embattled Middle Eastern country.
In the vacuum of postwar planning, Bremer ignores what Iraqis tell him they want or need and instead pursues irrelevant neoconservative solutions—a flat tax, a sell-off of Iraqi government assets, and an end to food rationing. His underlings spend their days drawing up pie-in-the-sky policies, among them a new traffic code and a law protecting microchip designs, instead of rebuilding looted buildings and restoring electricity production. His almost comic initiatives anger the locals and help fuel the insurgency.
Chandrasekaran details Bernard Kerik’s ludicrous attempt to train the Iraqi police and brings to light lesser known but typical the case of the twenty-four-year-old who had never worked in finance put in charge of reestablishing Baghdad’s stock exchange; a contractor with no previous experience paid millions to guard a closed airport; a State Department employee forced to bribe Americans to enlist their help in preventing Iraqi weapons scientists from defecting to Iran; Americans willing to serve in Iraq screened by White House officials for their views on Roe v. Wade; people with prior expertise in the Middle East excluded in favor of lesser-qualified Republican Party loyalists. Finally, he describes Bremer’s ignominious departure in 2004, fleeing secretly in a helicopter two days ahead of schedule.
This is a startling portrait of an Oz-like place where a vital aspect of our government’s folly in Iraq played out. It is a book certain to be talked about for years to come.
The Washington Post ’s former Baghdad bureau chief Rajiv Chandrasekaran takes us with him into the into a bubble, cut off from wartime realities, where the task of reconstructing a devastated nation competed with the distractions of a Little America—a half-dozen bars stocked with cold beer, a disco where women showed up in hot pants, a movie theater that screened shoot-’em-up films, an all-you-could-eat buffet piled high with pork, a shopping mall that sold pornographic movies, a parking lot filled with shiny new SUVs, and a snappy dry-cleaning service—much of it run by Halliburton. Most Iraqis were barred from entering the Emerald City for fear they would blow it up.
Drawing on hundreds of interviews and internal documents, Chandrasekaran tells the story of the people and ideas that inhabited the Green Zone during the occupation, from the imperial viceroy L. Paul Bremer III to the fleet of twentysomethings hired to implement the idea that Americans could build a Jeffersonian democracy in an embattled Middle Eastern country.
In the vacuum of postwar planning, Bremer ignores what Iraqis tell him they want or need and instead pursues irrelevant neoconservative solutions—a flat tax, a sell-off of Iraqi government assets, and an end to food rationing. His underlings spend their days drawing up pie-in-the-sky policies, among them a new traffic code and a law protecting microchip designs, instead of rebuilding looted buildings and restoring electricity production. His almost comic initiatives anger the locals and help fuel the insurgency.
Chandrasekaran details Bernard Kerik’s ludicrous attempt to train the Iraqi police and brings to light lesser known but typical the case of the twenty-four-year-old who had never worked in finance put in charge of reestablishing Baghdad’s stock exchange; a contractor with no previous experience paid millions to guard a closed airport; a State Department employee forced to bribe Americans to enlist their help in preventing Iraqi weapons scientists from defecting to Iran; Americans willing to serve in Iraq screened by White House officials for their views on Roe v. Wade; people with prior expertise in the Middle East excluded in favor of lesser-qualified Republican Party loyalists. Finally, he describes Bremer’s ignominious departure in 2004, fleeing secretly in a helicopter two days ahead of schedule.
This is a startling portrait of an Oz-like place where a vital aspect of our government’s folly in Iraq played out. It is a book certain to be talked about for years to come.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
296 people are currently reading
5884 people want to read
About the author
Rajiv Chandrasekaran
5 books62 followersRajiv Chandrasekaran is an Indian-American journalist. He is currently assistant managing editor for continuous news at The Washington Post, where he has worked since 1994. Originally from the San Francisco Bay area, Chandrasekaran holds a degree in political science from Stanford University, where he was editor-in-chief of The Stanford Daily.
At The Post he has served as bureau chief in Baghdad, Cairo, and Southeast Asia, and as a correspondent covering the war in Afghanistan. In 2004, he was journalist-in-residence at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, and a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
At The Post he has served as bureau chief in Baghdad, Cairo, and Southeast Asia, and as a correspondent covering the war in Afghanistan. In 2004, he was journalist-in-residence at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, and a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
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May 25, 2023
Rajiv Chanrdasekaran - Image from Citizen University
Baghdad’s Green Zone is a world unto itself, with its own power supply, water, restaurants. One need never leave, and many never do. The author describes the separateness of the place but uses that as a base from which to foray out to related subjects. Some of his examples are particularly poignant. One enterprising fellow built a pizzeria just outside the compound, only to discover that the Americans all eat inside. He talks much about the plague of outsourcing and how it resulted in oddities like sending laundry to Kuwait to be done. He offers many examples of earnest people trying to do good, but being stymied by either the impracticality of their dreams or interference from a completely politicized administration. Considerable space is devoted to the process whereby so-called sovereignty was handed over to the locals. Despite the vast sums allocated by the USA for this enterprise it seems that many of those attempting to actually reconstruct Iraq were always sorely lacking in funds. There was a ridiculous level of bad-faith dealing between the CPA, which was aligned with the Defense Department, and any personnel operating at the behest of State. They refused them funds, and even threatened violence against at least one State rep.
This is yet another portrayal of the bounteous ineptitude of an administration that put ideology and partisanship ahead of any form of practicality. It continues to be shocking. Bremer features heavily here, as an imperious dictator, but with some tempering of the dark portrayal. While the gist of the content is certainly familiar, it is useful, nonetheless, to have the gist filled in with a host of details. A worthwhile if not a required read. The excellent film, The Green Zone, was based, to a large extent, on this book.
Chanrdasekaran's
-----Twitter feed
-----writing for the publication Foreign Policy
February 3, 2010
Alternate Titles for this book could have been:
1. How not to rebuild a nation you just bombed the sh*t out of
2. How to F*ck up everything you touch, the Neocon way
3. Corruption, cronyism and good old fashioned incompetence on an unforeseen scale
4. Southern Efficiency in the Middle East
5. A Confederacy of Dunces
6. Beavis and Butthead Do Iraq
You get the message. In other words, if 10% of what Chandasekaran writes is 10% true, then this was the greatest con job in the history of the American Republic. Seriously, people need to be in jail, starting at the very top and working on down to the lowliest Republican crony.
That they got away with it (and continue to by and large) is simply amazing. Of course, not a lot of the things written here caused a lot of outrage when reported individually. It is only when seen together that the gross misconduct and the sheer negligence and dereliction of duty by the American State Department, defense contractors and Provisional Government really shines through.
1. How not to rebuild a nation you just bombed the sh*t out of
2. How to F*ck up everything you touch, the Neocon way
3. Corruption, cronyism and good old fashioned incompetence on an unforeseen scale
4. Southern Efficiency in the Middle East
5. A Confederacy of Dunces
6. Beavis and Butthead Do Iraq
You get the message. In other words, if 10% of what Chandasekaran writes is 10% true, then this was the greatest con job in the history of the American Republic. Seriously, people need to be in jail, starting at the very top and working on down to the lowliest Republican crony.
That they got away with it (and continue to by and large) is simply amazing. Of course, not a lot of the things written here caused a lot of outrage when reported individually. It is only when seen together that the gross misconduct and the sheer negligence and dereliction of duty by the American State Department, defense contractors and Provisional Government really shines through.
April 1, 2007
The short take: bad organizational structure and writing that is really just mediocre journalistic prose.
Although Chandrasekaran begins with a narrative "I," he never really identifies himself, and then launches into details about things like relationships between State department members and Pentagon members back in Washington, making one wonder where the information is coming from. There is little direct quotation, and his presentation and interpretation of events are so mixed that it's difficult to feel that it's an unbiased account. The author hence fails to be convincing in his arguments for the exact reasons and mechanisms by which the U.S. (or more specifically, the Coalition Provisional Authority) failed in Iraq. His explanation of sources given in the notes at the book's end is somewhat redeeming, but not necessarily helpful at the end of the book.
Sadly, what appears to be his other goal - to provide an engaging story about the war in Iraq and paint a portrait of life inside the Green Zone - only half succeeds for some of the same reasons. There is no clear voice: sometimes you hear directly from the author, but this often slips into third-person narration, sometimes focused on a CPA employee, sometimes on the state of events in Iraq overall, but he never stays long on one given theme. These vignettes tend to feel stilted, disjointed and formulaic. His attempt to build characters out of key CPA personnel basically includes introducing each person with the same details: what they were doing before Iraq; basic physical description, including particular attention on dress and hair style; current job in the CPA; 2-3 key personality traits; if they're qualified for the job and good, reason they are soon fired; if they aren't qualified, explanation of the GOP connection that got them the job and is why they're keeping it and bungling things up in Iraq.
The book is obviously supposed to outrage you at our handling of things in the early part of our presence in Iraq. That it manages fairly well: there's no missing the fact that loyalty to Bush was the main standard by which people were chosen for CPA projects, and that for the most part, this landed us with a bunch of incompetent, unknowledgable fools who were supposed to "build democracy" in the country whose infrastructure we had just destroyed in our "shock and awe" campaign. Also fairly obvious throughout the book is that the definition of "democracy" most of these people are working with looks suspiciously like the definition of "free market capitalism." The money that gets poured into privatization efforts and computerizing the Baghdad Stock Exchange, rather than into rebuilding power plants, water purification plants, or education and improved public safety, is astounding. The lack of questioning of this conflation is also amazing. Why should we think that unlimited opportunities for businessmen to make money will bring peace to a land and teach people how to govern themselves? There's an obvious lesson that we need to really examine what we mean by "democratic values" at home before we attempt to force them upon others.
The other point that I find most interesting, which comes up only briefly, is that the ethnic and religious divisions fueling Iraq's civil war were largely created by us Americans. The distinctions between Kurd, Sunni, and Shiite existed, but much less so before the American occupation. (Claiming certain affiliations could be pretty dangerous under Saddam's government.) In our attempt at "fairness," however, we hardened these categories to set up governing structures equally divided among these different groups, forcing stronger affiliations, and essentially laying the groundwork for civil war. While Chandrasekaran doesn't lay this out, it lines up well with what has happened in other colonized states like Rwanda (see Mahmood Mamdani's book on this).
So, all told, it was an informative book, though otherwise disappointing.
Although Chandrasekaran begins with a narrative "I," he never really identifies himself, and then launches into details about things like relationships between State department members and Pentagon members back in Washington, making one wonder where the information is coming from. There is little direct quotation, and his presentation and interpretation of events are so mixed that it's difficult to feel that it's an unbiased account. The author hence fails to be convincing in his arguments for the exact reasons and mechanisms by which the U.S. (or more specifically, the Coalition Provisional Authority) failed in Iraq. His explanation of sources given in the notes at the book's end is somewhat redeeming, but not necessarily helpful at the end of the book.
Sadly, what appears to be his other goal - to provide an engaging story about the war in Iraq and paint a portrait of life inside the Green Zone - only half succeeds for some of the same reasons. There is no clear voice: sometimes you hear directly from the author, but this often slips into third-person narration, sometimes focused on a CPA employee, sometimes on the state of events in Iraq overall, but he never stays long on one given theme. These vignettes tend to feel stilted, disjointed and formulaic. His attempt to build characters out of key CPA personnel basically includes introducing each person with the same details: what they were doing before Iraq; basic physical description, including particular attention on dress and hair style; current job in the CPA; 2-3 key personality traits; if they're qualified for the job and good, reason they are soon fired; if they aren't qualified, explanation of the GOP connection that got them the job and is why they're keeping it and bungling things up in Iraq.
The book is obviously supposed to outrage you at our handling of things in the early part of our presence in Iraq. That it manages fairly well: there's no missing the fact that loyalty to Bush was the main standard by which people were chosen for CPA projects, and that for the most part, this landed us with a bunch of incompetent, unknowledgable fools who were supposed to "build democracy" in the country whose infrastructure we had just destroyed in our "shock and awe" campaign. Also fairly obvious throughout the book is that the definition of "democracy" most of these people are working with looks suspiciously like the definition of "free market capitalism." The money that gets poured into privatization efforts and computerizing the Baghdad Stock Exchange, rather than into rebuilding power plants, water purification plants, or education and improved public safety, is astounding. The lack of questioning of this conflation is also amazing. Why should we think that unlimited opportunities for businessmen to make money will bring peace to a land and teach people how to govern themselves? There's an obvious lesson that we need to really examine what we mean by "democratic values" at home before we attempt to force them upon others.
The other point that I find most interesting, which comes up only briefly, is that the ethnic and religious divisions fueling Iraq's civil war were largely created by us Americans. The distinctions between Kurd, Sunni, and Shiite existed, but much less so before the American occupation. (Claiming certain affiliations could be pretty dangerous under Saddam's government.) In our attempt at "fairness," however, we hardened these categories to set up governing structures equally divided among these different groups, forcing stronger affiliations, and essentially laying the groundwork for civil war. While Chandrasekaran doesn't lay this out, it lines up well with what has happened in other colonized states like Rwanda (see Mahmood Mamdani's book on this).
So, all told, it was an informative book, though otherwise disappointing.
May 5, 2012
A brilliant satire on the occupation of a Middle Eastern country....well it would be, if it weren't true. This gives the reader a fairly shocking insight into the incompetency, arrogance and corruption involved in the Iraq occupation.
The Coalition Provisional Authority sets up shop in one of Saddam's palaces and creates a little bubble of Americana called the Green Zone surrounded by a Baghdad teetering on and, subsequently, falling into an abyss.
The author, Rajiv Chandrasekaran, restrains himself from too much editorializing and lets the main characters speak for themselves. These characters do present themselves as, in the main, honourable people who were woefully out of their depth and/or practising self-deception to a staggering level. There are also tales of corruption and plain stupidity - as well as heroism and selflessness.
An excellent piece of reportage, that is both well-written, witty and ultimately, inceredibly sad.
The Coalition Provisional Authority sets up shop in one of Saddam's palaces and creates a little bubble of Americana called the Green Zone surrounded by a Baghdad teetering on and, subsequently, falling into an abyss.
The author, Rajiv Chandrasekaran, restrains himself from too much editorializing and lets the main characters speak for themselves. These characters do present themselves as, in the main, honourable people who were woefully out of their depth and/or practising self-deception to a staggering level. There are also tales of corruption and plain stupidity - as well as heroism and selflessness.
An excellent piece of reportage, that is both well-written, witty and ultimately, inceredibly sad.
June 28, 2008
I knew the war was hatched by a fantasy driven cabal, but this book really laid it out in detail. It's an interesting contrast to another book I recently read, titled "Muqtada," by Patrick Cockburn. Cockburn's book deals with the Iraq almost exclusively from the standpoint of (anti-U.S.) Iraqi Shias. This book deals with the war almost exclusively from the standpoint of the U.S. crew than ran Iraq up until the elections in 2005. Both compliment each other well.
The gist of the book is that as soon as the war was started, a hand-picked bunch of neocons, or neocon sympathizers, were put in charge of administering Iraq. Most had no idea what they were doing. As Chandrasekaran describes it, many were true believers of the neocon fantasy of rebuilding Iraq to be a shining example of democracy and free capitalism in the Middle East. Douglas Feith, the neocon in charge of setting up the CPA, though it would be accomplished in 90 days. The Coalition Provisional Authority's viceroy, Paul Bremer, dropped all trade restrictions immediately and moved to privatize industry, which the old ministers of the state owned companies were happy to do to make a bunch of money...until their workers tried to assassinate them.
Chandraskaran gives a good sense of how much the CPA really believed they were revolutionizing Iraq and his examples of how they did it make a really interesting read. He talks about people hired to deal with traffic who went about writing traffic laws based on those of Massachusetts, a professor from Johns Hopkins University hired to reconstruct the university system who set his sites on creating academic freedom rather than rebuilding the bombed out buildings, and grand plans to create an area code system well before a constitution was even written.
To me, Chandraskran is operating a little too much within the official story--he says the occupation ended when sovereignty was handed over and at times suggests that a free market might not be such a bad idea--but it's his total immersion within their fantasy world that makes the book good. His illustrations of life inside the Green Zone, where people used water shipped from Kuwait and had their laundry done there too, are emblematic of US involvement in Iraq: they have their own little world, where they pat each other on the back for being pioneers of freedom, while hell reigns down around them.
The gist of the book is that as soon as the war was started, a hand-picked bunch of neocons, or neocon sympathizers, were put in charge of administering Iraq. Most had no idea what they were doing. As Chandrasekaran describes it, many were true believers of the neocon fantasy of rebuilding Iraq to be a shining example of democracy and free capitalism in the Middle East. Douglas Feith, the neocon in charge of setting up the CPA, though it would be accomplished in 90 days. The Coalition Provisional Authority's viceroy, Paul Bremer, dropped all trade restrictions immediately and moved to privatize industry, which the old ministers of the state owned companies were happy to do to make a bunch of money...until their workers tried to assassinate them.
Chandraskaran gives a good sense of how much the CPA really believed they were revolutionizing Iraq and his examples of how they did it make a really interesting read. He talks about people hired to deal with traffic who went about writing traffic laws based on those of Massachusetts, a professor from Johns Hopkins University hired to reconstruct the university system who set his sites on creating academic freedom rather than rebuilding the bombed out buildings, and grand plans to create an area code system well before a constitution was even written.
To me, Chandraskran is operating a little too much within the official story--he says the occupation ended when sovereignty was handed over and at times suggests that a free market might not be such a bad idea--but it's his total immersion within their fantasy world that makes the book good. His illustrations of life inside the Green Zone, where people used water shipped from Kuwait and had their laundry done there too, are emblematic of US involvement in Iraq: they have their own little world, where they pat each other on the back for being pioneers of freedom, while hell reigns down around them.
October 29, 2023
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 but people were hired, not because they were qualified, but for their connections. It started at 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 the "reconstruction" disaster 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.
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 but people were hired, not because they were qualified, but for their connections. It started at 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 the "reconstruction" disaster 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.
February 16, 2014
This was a well-researched and shocking look at the attempt to provide Iraq with a democratic, capitalistic government and way of life after its US invasion/liberation. That such a massive undertaking was began without a clear idea of the next step is a strange truth that is drilled home again and again. Missteps, misguided actions, and good-but-not-thoroughly-thought-through-intentions make up most of this book, but the insights into day-to-day life in the green zone are no less compelling.
Heavily recommended.
Heavily recommended.
April 16, 2008
I read this during Spring Break. A very informative book. It is kind of depressing to see how the U.S. Government has allowed private contractors carte blanche as well as establishing a bureacracy in the middle of the war zone in Iraq that would compare with any on Capitol Hill. It made this die-hard Conservative wonder about the effectiveness of our involvement in Iraq.
June 27, 2011
Rajiv Chandrasekaran's book is journalism at its best, and the loss will be irreparable if newspaper journalists fade into extinction. The Emerald City is an image reminiscent of the Raj – Americans relaxing around a swimming pool, in a 7 square mile enclave, enjoying drinks, eating American food, relaxing in clean clothing in the middle of Baghdad. The segregation from the real Iraq was genuine; the relaxed lifestyle an illusion. The occupation of Iraq brought a flood of ill-prepared, idealistic visionaries with conflicting goals to reconstruct a society that was already broken before the American invasion. They enjoyed the comfort of air-conditioning, laundry service carted out to neighboring Kuwait, and a modern hospital facility run by the 28th Combat Unit. What they lacked was the time to scale the steep learning curve ahead of them, an overall plan that included knowledge of Iraqi political and economic realities, and an incentive to leave this cocoon of safety.
IMPERIAL LIFE IN THE EMERALD CITY; INSIDE IRAQ'S GREEN ZONE, intersperses anecdotal “scenes” of individual lives and vignettes of ironic humor with in-depth analysis of the events from the fall of Baghdad to June 2004 when an interim Iraqi government took over and Viceroy Bremer departed. The arbitrary decision making that affected these lives is at times disturbing.
A primary obstacle to reconstruction was the hasty selection of a team lacking in experience – especially post-conflict experience. Some quickly adapted. Steve Browning's name is frequently mentioned. Originally with the Army Corp of Engineers, he succeeded in providing generators for the country's hospitals, and distributing medicine sitting idly in warehouses to the places they were needed. He also tried to learn some Arabic and to observe respect for Iraqi customs. Unfortunately, his story was the exception rather than the rule. Too many appointees were selected because of their Republican Party affiliations. One such recruit tried to make an anti-smoking campaign a public health priority. The occupation lasted for less than 9 months. It was too short a time to learn from mistakes, but long enough for mistakes to accumulate in an increasing number of Iraqi minds.
The occupation began with no overall plan, but with conflicting political agendas in Washington. The Pentagon wanted to stabilize Iraq and favored installation of Iraqi exile Ahmed Chalabi. The State Department and the CIA did not trust Chalabi and wanted their own people included in the reconstruction process. The NSC initially left the details in the hands of the Defense Department. By Fall they were re-thinking the domestic implications of Bremer's plans and began exerting greater control. Colin Powell learned the details of Bremer's transition plan from the op-ed pages of the Washington Post.
Internal communication was not the only problem. The Green Zone was an island of safety. Few Americans ventured out of it or were curious about Iraqi customs or learning Arabic. A major misstep was the failure to recognize the importance of religion – even for secular moderates. Insistence on an American-style separation of Church and State made no sense in Iraq. Similarly, no one in a leadership position understood the importance of the Shiite leader, Sayyid Ali al-Sistani. Another miscalculation was the structure of the Baath Party under Saadam. Bremer's de-Baathification policy disqualified many of the most able and well-educated from a role in the new Iraq.
IMPERIAL LIFE IN THE EMERALD CITY is a long book portraying dozens of people, and includes interviews with dozens of others. Chandrasekaran holds our interest by organizing various stories – the obsession with privatization, the problems with the electric grid, the escalation of violence, the ill-conceived awarding of an airport security contract to an inexperienced start-up which went on to scam the government out of millions due to fraud. However, this can, at the same time, make for a confusing narrative. The astute reader would be wise to keep a brief chronology of events, and a list of names mentioned in order to grasp the structure of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). (If you want mine, I'm happy to oblige).
Chandrasekaran obviously wonders if fewer mistakes would have led to a better outcome. Yet, he does not force the reader to agree with him. By presenting a many-faceted story, he allows each reader to judge for himself. I finished this book with the sad conclusion that failure was inevitable. Rather than finding fault with any particular individual, his story seems to tell the saga of a classical tragedy brought on by hubris.
IMPERIAL LIFE IN THE EMERALD CITY; INSIDE IRAQ'S GREEN ZONE, intersperses anecdotal “scenes” of individual lives and vignettes of ironic humor with in-depth analysis of the events from the fall of Baghdad to June 2004 when an interim Iraqi government took over and Viceroy Bremer departed. The arbitrary decision making that affected these lives is at times disturbing.
A primary obstacle to reconstruction was the hasty selection of a team lacking in experience – especially post-conflict experience. Some quickly adapted. Steve Browning's name is frequently mentioned. Originally with the Army Corp of Engineers, he succeeded in providing generators for the country's hospitals, and distributing medicine sitting idly in warehouses to the places they were needed. He also tried to learn some Arabic and to observe respect for Iraqi customs. Unfortunately, his story was the exception rather than the rule. Too many appointees were selected because of their Republican Party affiliations. One such recruit tried to make an anti-smoking campaign a public health priority. The occupation lasted for less than 9 months. It was too short a time to learn from mistakes, but long enough for mistakes to accumulate in an increasing number of Iraqi minds.
The occupation began with no overall plan, but with conflicting political agendas in Washington. The Pentagon wanted to stabilize Iraq and favored installation of Iraqi exile Ahmed Chalabi. The State Department and the CIA did not trust Chalabi and wanted their own people included in the reconstruction process. The NSC initially left the details in the hands of the Defense Department. By Fall they were re-thinking the domestic implications of Bremer's plans and began exerting greater control. Colin Powell learned the details of Bremer's transition plan from the op-ed pages of the Washington Post.
Internal communication was not the only problem. The Green Zone was an island of safety. Few Americans ventured out of it or were curious about Iraqi customs or learning Arabic. A major misstep was the failure to recognize the importance of religion – even for secular moderates. Insistence on an American-style separation of Church and State made no sense in Iraq. Similarly, no one in a leadership position understood the importance of the Shiite leader, Sayyid Ali al-Sistani. Another miscalculation was the structure of the Baath Party under Saadam. Bremer's de-Baathification policy disqualified many of the most able and well-educated from a role in the new Iraq.
IMPERIAL LIFE IN THE EMERALD CITY is a long book portraying dozens of people, and includes interviews with dozens of others. Chandrasekaran holds our interest by organizing various stories – the obsession with privatization, the problems with the electric grid, the escalation of violence, the ill-conceived awarding of an airport security contract to an inexperienced start-up which went on to scam the government out of millions due to fraud. However, this can, at the same time, make for a confusing narrative. The astute reader would be wise to keep a brief chronology of events, and a list of names mentioned in order to grasp the structure of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). (If you want mine, I'm happy to oblige).
Chandrasekaran obviously wonders if fewer mistakes would have led to a better outcome. Yet, he does not force the reader to agree with him. By presenting a many-faceted story, he allows each reader to judge for himself. I finished this book with the sad conclusion that failure was inevitable. Rather than finding fault with any particular individual, his story seems to tell the saga of a classical tragedy brought on by hubris.
January 22, 2010
A review of the book when it first came out a few years back:
Rajiv Chandrasekaran is with the Washington Post; he has spent time in both Afghanistan and Iraq since the American missions in both places. His experiences in Iraq as well as his interviews with those in Iraq during the time of the CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority, under the control of Paul Bremer) and the precursor organization (under Jay Garner)provide important bases for this work. The picture is not pretty, and ties in with arguments advanced by other books on Iraq written of late.
First, as readers already know, there was no real plan for after the war. The book makes it clear that much of the redevelopment of Iraq was ad hoc. Since no one understood how much in tatters the electrical grid was, there was no real preparation for dealing with the degraded system. And the end result was that infrastructure was worse after the war as compared with before. And the CPA was unable to do much to restore power and make the system work better.
Second, many of the "leaders" selected by the CPA were chosen for their political connections. For instance, very young (twenty something) people who had built IOUs from the Administration for, for instance, working in the Bush election campaign, were selected to head units for which they had no expertise at all. Sometimes, seasoned administrators were pushed aside, occasionally because they were not gung ho enough politically.
Third, the CPA was fairly clueless about what was happening on the ground in Iraq. They were slow to pick up on the insurgency, for example. It took them some time to understand the importance of the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. They became landlocked in the "Green Zone," as conditions worsened outside.
The book begins with a quotation from T. E. Lawrence (of Arabia), who said in 1917: "Do not try to do too much with your own hands. Better the Arabs do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly. It is their war, and you are to help them, not to win it for them."
The book indicates the number of times when Iraqis were given secondary status to Americans, whether in running organizations or on political decision-making. One important neoconservative, on reflection of his experiences in Iraq, became most disillusioned. He commented to the author: "I'm a neoconservative who's been mugged by reality (page 5)." What began as an easy military victory turned into a quagmire. As the American involvement moved from liberation to occupation, things began to disintegrate. As one Iraqi told the author (page 290): "The biggest mistake of the occupation was the occupation itself."
All in all, one of the more powerful books about the American incursion into Iraq; it is also one of the best descriptions of the CPA's reign in Iraq. It triangulates strongly with other volumes.
Rajiv Chandrasekaran is with the Washington Post; he has spent time in both Afghanistan and Iraq since the American missions in both places. His experiences in Iraq as well as his interviews with those in Iraq during the time of the CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority, under the control of Paul Bremer) and the precursor organization (under Jay Garner)provide important bases for this work. The picture is not pretty, and ties in with arguments advanced by other books on Iraq written of late.
First, as readers already know, there was no real plan for after the war. The book makes it clear that much of the redevelopment of Iraq was ad hoc. Since no one understood how much in tatters the electrical grid was, there was no real preparation for dealing with the degraded system. And the end result was that infrastructure was worse after the war as compared with before. And the CPA was unable to do much to restore power and make the system work better.
Second, many of the "leaders" selected by the CPA were chosen for their political connections. For instance, very young (twenty something) people who had built IOUs from the Administration for, for instance, working in the Bush election campaign, were selected to head units for which they had no expertise at all. Sometimes, seasoned administrators were pushed aside, occasionally because they were not gung ho enough politically.
Third, the CPA was fairly clueless about what was happening on the ground in Iraq. They were slow to pick up on the insurgency, for example. It took them some time to understand the importance of the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. They became landlocked in the "Green Zone," as conditions worsened outside.
The book begins with a quotation from T. E. Lawrence (of Arabia), who said in 1917: "Do not try to do too much with your own hands. Better the Arabs do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly. It is their war, and you are to help them, not to win it for them."
The book indicates the number of times when Iraqis were given secondary status to Americans, whether in running organizations or on political decision-making. One important neoconservative, on reflection of his experiences in Iraq, became most disillusioned. He commented to the author: "I'm a neoconservative who's been mugged by reality (page 5)." What began as an easy military victory turned into a quagmire. As the American involvement moved from liberation to occupation, things began to disintegrate. As one Iraqi told the author (page 290): "The biggest mistake of the occupation was the occupation itself."
All in all, one of the more powerful books about the American incursion into Iraq; it is also one of the best descriptions of the CPA's reign in Iraq. It triangulates strongly with other volumes.
March 18, 2021
Why, oh why, do I keep reading books on topics I find deeply infuriating? (Well, I'll tell you why: Ignorance may be bliss, but it leads to exactly the kind of morons this book contains entirely too many of.)
Chandrasekaran takes a long, hard look at the US occupation of Iraq. It's a tale of arrogance and arbitrariness, greed and hubris, idiocy and incompentence, ruined lives, squandered funds, and a whole lot of American idiots ultimately grinning and patting themselves on the back for a job well done, with precisely zero understanding of just how badly they managed to fuck up pretty much everything they touched. I really wish this were a satire, because in that case, it'd be hilarious. Sadly, it's not. Instead, it's just infuriating.
Chandrasekaran takes a long, hard look at the US occupation of Iraq. It's a tale of arrogance and arbitrariness, greed and hubris, idiocy and incompentence, ruined lives, squandered funds, and a whole lot of American idiots ultimately grinning and patting themselves on the back for a job well done, with precisely zero understanding of just how badly they managed to fuck up pretty much everything they touched. I really wish this were a satire, because in that case, it'd be hilarious. Sadly, it's not. Instead, it's just infuriating.
October 6, 2020
Rajiv Chandrasekaran is an American journalist. He is the National Editor of The Washington Post, where he has worked since 1994, according to his Wikipedia page.
Author Rajiv Chandrasekaran:
Imperial Life in the Emerald City opens with some interesting writing about life inside the Green Zone:
The Green Zone:
Chandrasekaran talks about many of the major US players and their policies in a post-war Iraq; Jay Garner, Paul "Jerry" Bremmer III, De-Ba'athification, Bernie Kerik, and many others.
The story of the macro-political climate is interspliced by a few ground-level accounts of the Green Zone; including an Iraqi who opened a pizza shop, and a wedding that took place.
From the book's title, I was expecting more talk of life inside the Green Zone. While the book does open with a brief bit about this, most of the rest of the book talks about the political and military efforts to rebuild the country.
I also found the writing a bit slow and dry at times here, unfortunately.
3 stars for this one.
Author Rajiv Chandrasekaran:
Imperial Life in the Emerald City opens with some interesting writing about life inside the Green Zone:
"...In the back garden of the Republican Palace, deep in the heart of the Green Zone, bronzed young men with rippling muscles and tattooed forearms plunged into a resort-size swimming pool. Others, clad in baggy trunks and wraparound sunglasses, lay sprawled on chaise lounges in the shadows of towering palms, munching Doritos and sipping iced tea. Off to the side, men in khakis and women in sundresses relaxed under a wooden gazebo. Some read pulp novels, some noshed from the all-you-can-eat buffet. A boom box thumped with hip-hop music. Now and then, a dozen lanky Iraqi men in identical blue shirts and trousers walked by on their way to sweep the deck, prune the shrubbery, or water the plants. They moved in single file behind a burly, mustachioed American foreman. From a distance, they looked like a chain gang.
The pool was an oasis of calm in the Green Zone, the seven-square-mile American enclave in central Baghdad. The only disruption was the occasional whoomp-whoomp of a low-flying Black Hawk helicopter, a red cross painted on its drab olive underbelly, ferrying casualties to the hospital down the street. A few loungers glanced up at the chopper, but most were unfazed. It was the trilling of a mobile phone that commanded attention. The American firm that had set up the network didn’t provide voice mail—answering a call was the only way to find out what the boss wanted or where the party was later that night..."
The Green Zone:
Chandrasekaran talks about many of the major US players and their policies in a post-war Iraq; Jay Garner, Paul "Jerry" Bremmer III, De-Ba'athification, Bernie Kerik, and many others.
The story of the macro-political climate is interspliced by a few ground-level accounts of the Green Zone; including an Iraqi who opened a pizza shop, and a wedding that took place.
From the book's title, I was expecting more talk of life inside the Green Zone. While the book does open with a brief bit about this, most of the rest of the book talks about the political and military efforts to rebuild the country.
I also found the writing a bit slow and dry at times here, unfortunately.
3 stars for this one.
July 11, 2024
Really great piece of non-fiction. Scathing, insightful, and just the right amount of detail to make you feel like you’re there with Chandrasekaran but without it ever really feeling boring. I regret waiting so long to read this.
June 22, 2022
PART ONE—BUILDING THE BUBBLE
1 Versailles on the Tigris
8/10
Fascinating look at the Green Zone in around 2003-2004 or so. The author explains how the Americans in the capital lived in their own zone and Iraqis working there earned 10 time as much. So the Iraqis working there may not have complained as much making the US administration for the country not get the issues in the country. The rest of Iraq was worse than under Saddam as much didn't work and places were looted by robbers during the war. Did American leaders know how Iraq looked like? The author strongly assumes it's a big fat no.
2 A Deer in the Headlights
6,5/10
Few loose stories about Saddam's giant mansions, looting, and the top-down hiring that the Bush administration messes up.
3 You’re in Charge!
8/10
Initially buildings are left empty. Iraqis loot it all. First electronics, then furniture, then even cobber cables. Everything is taken as the US military doesn't guard it. Bush sends in a leader and replaces him a month later. The Iraqi election is underway, but no one knows who will lead or when. Only a few women are in the Green Zone and all very popular and want to stay single and popular.
4 Control Freak
9,5/10
A micro-managing control-freak American called Bremer is put in charge of Iraq. He rules even small things top-down just like Saddam did. He only talks with the US president in USA and ignores any suggestions or orders from lower ranks in USA. He gives them info via the president meetings only. He fires all Baath people - people who are former Saddam followers. He also fires all the Iraqi military and cancels the election for now. It leaves the military decimated. They already fled during the invasion and now have nowhere to go. The bases are looted. Some schools have only 1 teacher left as many were forced into the Saddam Baath party.
5 Who Are These People?
7,5/10
They plan to import 5000 Westerners to train the upcoming police force to stop the huge amount of crime. But this would look like a takeover so they don't do it. They still need to train future cops. Rudy Giuliani is involved too. People who voted Republican are put in power no matter their competence.
Some Iraqis set up shops or restaurants to cater to the rich American soldiers wondering why they are not arriving. All stuck in the Green Zone.
6 We Need to Rethink This
7,5/10
During Saddam the Iraqi money was worth $3. In reality you needed to pay several hundreds on the free market to get a dollar so many companies are going bankrupt as the goods they bought before cost $1 and now would cost a proper market price. Also, the government gave out pensions before.
The neo-conservatives try to privatize all the government companies to kickstart the free market and make the country functional.
7 Bring a Duffel Bag
7,5/10
Many leaders and PR people in charge couldn't speak Arabic. Americans set up an Arabic news channel, but it's US propaganda people in Iraq don't want to watch. The book has some stories about Custer Battles an extremely corrupt private company from USA. A bunch of young inexperienced guys make extreme promises getting initial security contracts and then start scamming the US military for millions in other contracts. Like repainting old Iraqi cranes and then telling the army they imported them while renting them out to the army.
8 A Yearning for Old Times
7/10
A hotel used by the military experiences rocket attacks. Even in the Green Zone you have attacks now. Nowhere in Iraq is safe anymore.
PART TWO—SHATTERED DREAMS
9 Let This Be Over
6/10
Bremer is being pushed out from leadership as USA wants to stabilize the country faster. Bremer now has to play ball. The chapter also goes into left-wing Americans who have some power in Iraq.
10 The Plan Unravels
7/10
Appeasing Russians and the French. Bremer trying to create new rules and laws. He gives little to no time for groups to implement new ideas or laws or gather info for him to make new regulations.
11 A Fool’s Errand
6/10
Hospitals and medicine.
12 We Cannot Continue Like This
7/10
Stock exchange.
13 Missed Opportunities
7/10
Temporally government finally set up. Bremer does his first non-dictatorial thing by agreeing on a deal with the Kurds to keep them part of the country.
14 Breaking the Rules
7/10
Smaller stories. Cats are killed off as they "spread disease".
15 Crazy, If Not Suicidal
7/10
Sewage cleanup. They try to get rid of a gang leader who has grown too strong. They shut down his newspaper and he declares war on the Americans causing big shootouts. US contractors are killed in Fallujah. Rebels cheer on TV while recording the bodies. US invades Fallujah. They give gear to Iraqis to finish the fighting, but they just give it away to the rebels and refuse any battles. No Iraqi plans to fight for the Americans.
16 A Lot Left to Be Done
6/10
My final opinion on the book
Great book. Lots of small stories about how the post-war Iraq was a giant mess with looters and violent gangs while the Bush White House selected a clueless dictatorial Bremer to lead it all. They all messed up. Iraq was lost anyhow, but the weird American mistakes made it worse. To such a degree that many Iraqis started to hate USA for messing up their country and fixing little of it. Saddam left and chaos replaced him.
This book goes over a ton of smaller mistakes Americans made as they couldn't speak Arabic, didn't understand the Middle East, and didn't plan for anything post the war. This makes it a goldmine for great small stories. But at the same time it also means it's quite messy as it's a lot of names and stories loosely relevant to a chapter topic. Overall I did get all the gists, but I missed quite a few stories. As the book focuses on stories, not great and deep analysis of all single mistakes, it's not always easy to understand why a certain thing went wrong of how they could have fixed it.
The movie made from the book is a mess. It has nothing to do with the book as it is a fictional story about chasing the guy who USA used as a source for the WMD claim. A guy invented for the movie. The real person was an unemployed immigrant living in Germany who revealed his identity after the movie was made, in a Danish documentary. This book overall deserves a TV show. And it definitely should have had a documentary series. The doc No End in Sight (2007) is maybe the best source on the topic besides this book? I'm having a hard time finding much on Iraq or Afghanistan and how it went wrong. Journalists don't really like these regions I guess. So we have to hope some talented writer was there from the start, saw it all, and survived. Which is a rare thing. But documentaries post the event should be possible and simple to make. So why don't we have like a 40 episode doc series on this stuff? Not sure.
1 Versailles on the Tigris
8/10
Fascinating look at the Green Zone in around 2003-2004 or so. The author explains how the Americans in the capital lived in their own zone and Iraqis working there earned 10 time as much. So the Iraqis working there may not have complained as much making the US administration for the country not get the issues in the country. The rest of Iraq was worse than under Saddam as much didn't work and places were looted by robbers during the war. Did American leaders know how Iraq looked like? The author strongly assumes it's a big fat no.
2 A Deer in the Headlights
6,5/10
Few loose stories about Saddam's giant mansions, looting, and the top-down hiring that the Bush administration messes up.
3 You’re in Charge!
8/10
Initially buildings are left empty. Iraqis loot it all. First electronics, then furniture, then even cobber cables. Everything is taken as the US military doesn't guard it. Bush sends in a leader and replaces him a month later. The Iraqi election is underway, but no one knows who will lead or when. Only a few women are in the Green Zone and all very popular and want to stay single and popular.
4 Control Freak
9,5/10
A micro-managing control-freak American called Bremer is put in charge of Iraq. He rules even small things top-down just like Saddam did. He only talks with the US president in USA and ignores any suggestions or orders from lower ranks in USA. He gives them info via the president meetings only. He fires all Baath people - people who are former Saddam followers. He also fires all the Iraqi military and cancels the election for now. It leaves the military decimated. They already fled during the invasion and now have nowhere to go. The bases are looted. Some schools have only 1 teacher left as many were forced into the Saddam Baath party.
5 Who Are These People?
7,5/10
They plan to import 5000 Westerners to train the upcoming police force to stop the huge amount of crime. But this would look like a takeover so they don't do it. They still need to train future cops. Rudy Giuliani is involved too. People who voted Republican are put in power no matter their competence.
Some Iraqis set up shops or restaurants to cater to the rich American soldiers wondering why they are not arriving. All stuck in the Green Zone.
6 We Need to Rethink This
7,5/10
During Saddam the Iraqi money was worth $3. In reality you needed to pay several hundreds on the free market to get a dollar so many companies are going bankrupt as the goods they bought before cost $1 and now would cost a proper market price. Also, the government gave out pensions before.
The neo-conservatives try to privatize all the government companies to kickstart the free market and make the country functional.
7 Bring a Duffel Bag
7,5/10
Many leaders and PR people in charge couldn't speak Arabic. Americans set up an Arabic news channel, but it's US propaganda people in Iraq don't want to watch. The book has some stories about Custer Battles an extremely corrupt private company from USA. A bunch of young inexperienced guys make extreme promises getting initial security contracts and then start scamming the US military for millions in other contracts. Like repainting old Iraqi cranes and then telling the army they imported them while renting them out to the army.
8 A Yearning for Old Times
7/10
A hotel used by the military experiences rocket attacks. Even in the Green Zone you have attacks now. Nowhere in Iraq is safe anymore.
PART TWO—SHATTERED DREAMS
9 Let This Be Over
6/10
Bremer is being pushed out from leadership as USA wants to stabilize the country faster. Bremer now has to play ball. The chapter also goes into left-wing Americans who have some power in Iraq.
10 The Plan Unravels
7/10
Appeasing Russians and the French. Bremer trying to create new rules and laws. He gives little to no time for groups to implement new ideas or laws or gather info for him to make new regulations.
11 A Fool’s Errand
6/10
Hospitals and medicine.
12 We Cannot Continue Like This
7/10
Stock exchange.
I asked Tabatabai what would have happened if Hallen hadn’t been assigned to reopen the stock exchange. He smiled. “We would have opened months earlier. He had grand ideas, but those ideas did not materialize,” Tabatabai said of Hallen.
13 Missed Opportunities
7/10
Temporally government finally set up. Bremer does his first non-dictatorial thing by agreeing on a deal with the Kurds to keep them part of the country.
14 Breaking the Rules
7/10
Smaller stories. Cats are killed off as they "spread disease".
15 Crazy, If Not Suicidal
7/10
Sewage cleanup. They try to get rid of a gang leader who has grown too strong. They shut down his newspaper and he declares war on the Americans causing big shootouts. US contractors are killed in Fallujah. Rebels cheer on TV while recording the bodies. US invades Fallujah. They give gear to Iraqis to finish the fighting, but they just give it away to the rebels and refuse any battles. No Iraqi plans to fight for the Americans.
16 A Lot Left to Be Done
6/10
Agresto believed that Iraqis hadn’t focused on ethnic and religious divisions before the war, and that it was the CPA’s quota system that had encouraged them to identify themselves by race and sect.
My final opinion on the book
Great book. Lots of small stories about how the post-war Iraq was a giant mess with looters and violent gangs while the Bush White House selected a clueless dictatorial Bremer to lead it all. They all messed up. Iraq was lost anyhow, but the weird American mistakes made it worse. To such a degree that many Iraqis started to hate USA for messing up their country and fixing little of it. Saddam left and chaos replaced him.
This book goes over a ton of smaller mistakes Americans made as they couldn't speak Arabic, didn't understand the Middle East, and didn't plan for anything post the war. This makes it a goldmine for great small stories. But at the same time it also means it's quite messy as it's a lot of names and stories loosely relevant to a chapter topic. Overall I did get all the gists, but I missed quite a few stories. As the book focuses on stories, not great and deep analysis of all single mistakes, it's not always easy to understand why a certain thing went wrong of how they could have fixed it.
The movie made from the book is a mess. It has nothing to do with the book as it is a fictional story about chasing the guy who USA used as a source for the WMD claim. A guy invented for the movie. The real person was an unemployed immigrant living in Germany who revealed his identity after the movie was made, in a Danish documentary. This book overall deserves a TV show. And it definitely should have had a documentary series. The doc No End in Sight (2007) is maybe the best source on the topic besides this book? I'm having a hard time finding much on Iraq or Afghanistan and how it went wrong. Journalists don't really like these regions I guess. So we have to hope some talented writer was there from the start, saw it all, and survived. Which is a rare thing. But documentaries post the event should be possible and simple to make. So why don't we have like a 40 episode doc series on this stuff? Not sure.
November 8, 2023
Another separate listing so another post for my review from 2015:
I probably came to this book to late - I already knew what a totally ghastly cluster fuck the whole Iraq war was and having endured that grinning moron Blair as the UK Prime Minister backing he whole thing by bending over and saying 'fuck me, fuck me deeper as long as I can tag along and pretend the UK is still important' - I just found everything said in this excellent book so depressing - it just made me sad - when I read about the mural in UK Baghdad HQ with the twin towers revenge fantasy I just wanted to cry - so the book is great - the story it tells is one that makes me want to weep so I just couldn't finish it. I have enough to be sad and depressed about.
And no I didn't and don't have any intention of seeing the film.
I probably came to this book to late - I already knew what a totally ghastly cluster fuck the whole Iraq war was and having endured that grinning moron Blair as the UK Prime Minister backing he whole thing by bending over and saying 'fuck me, fuck me deeper as long as I can tag along and pretend the UK is still important' - I just found everything said in this excellent book so depressing - it just made me sad - when I read about the mural in UK Baghdad HQ with the twin towers revenge fantasy I just wanted to cry - so the book is great - the story it tells is one that makes me want to weep so I just couldn't finish it. I have enough to be sad and depressed about.
And no I didn't and don't have any intention of seeing the film.
November 8, 2023
This is a fantastic look into the pathetic efforts set forth by the Bush Cheney admin. Could be called Riches, Republicans and Religion or Banking, Bumpkins and Bibles. The bundle of ass kissers put into high profile jobs for being what they are and the money stolen...or billed was a crime. This book covers the "occupation" thoroughly and puts forth the facts the writer could ascertain in a well told way. Some one should've realized you don't bring religious fanatics to fix religious fanatics. Worth the time.
December 15, 2024
American foreign policy is just so arrogant man.
August 13, 2024
Wow, great book. I had read the first couple pages when I picked this book up off the street and thought it might be a little over ideological, but that was way off base. Yes, Chandrasekaran doesn't like Bush's handling of Iraq, but neither do I! Excellent read, shows clearly how we won the war, but lost the peace.
May 17, 2017
Given the historical context of American intervention into foreign government, and their foreign policy achievements, the invasion of Iraq appeared very much to be the latest attempt by the U.S empire to extend itself and its considerable resources into a country that didn't need the clumsiness of Americans, but ought to have had the autonomy to rebuild itself. Chandrasekaran's writing is compelling and restrained, although with such a vast cast of characters, sometimes his ability to steam ahead on certain events or people, can be confusing. He keeps a conversational tone throughout, but it is quite clear how incredulous he is at the actions of the Coalition Provisional Authority.
He is critical of the Bush administration's inability to assign anyone with the knowledge or education to help Iraq rebuild, of bureaucracy that prevents action and impossible goals designed for optics rather than reality. While Iraqi's cried out for electricity, employment and the right to govern themselves, Republican party loyalists and corporations such as Halliburton landed in Iraq to do nothing much at all. The book details security measures around the Emerald city, designed to protect Americans from the opinions of those they were supposed to help; cult like support for the Bush administrations actions; the dismissiveness with which Iraqis are treated and the incompetence, arrogance and ignorance of leaders sent to manage the CPA, including Paul Bremer.
It is easy to see why American foreign policy is resented in many of the nations it purports to 'save'. Funding for higher education was allocated to build partnerships with American universities, rather than resurrect Iraqi ones from the rubble. Baathists with no real connection to the Party, apart from the memberships they were forced to get, were fired from their positions and prevented from being able to work again. The CPA attempted to create a private sector out of state owned enterprises, dreaming of capitalist markets while such enterprises were empty because of looting. Refusal to consult Middle Eastern experts, inability to understand societal relations and ignorance of Iraqi customs led to division by religious lines and set up a poorly representative council of Iraqis to plan out Iraq's future.
It's frustrating to read about the sheer incompetence of the CPA and the Bush administration in the handover of Iraq, particularly as we've seen Americans make the same mistakes over and over again. Refusing to consult their Vietnamese military counterparts in Vietnam, attempting to protect democracy by overthrowing elected leaders and involving themselves in disputes and conflicts without properly considering the effectiveness of their interventions. Without a doubt, the United States is a super power, but unlike the ideals proclaimed by its founders and many presidents long after, it has strayed from its standing as city on a hill, as a beacon of democracy and a protector of freedom. The world today has been changed because of American foreign policy and its need to act as global policeperson, perhaps for the worse.
He is critical of the Bush administration's inability to assign anyone with the knowledge or education to help Iraq rebuild, of bureaucracy that prevents action and impossible goals designed for optics rather than reality. While Iraqi's cried out for electricity, employment and the right to govern themselves, Republican party loyalists and corporations such as Halliburton landed in Iraq to do nothing much at all. The book details security measures around the Emerald city, designed to protect Americans from the opinions of those they were supposed to help; cult like support for the Bush administrations actions; the dismissiveness with which Iraqis are treated and the incompetence, arrogance and ignorance of leaders sent to manage the CPA, including Paul Bremer.
It is easy to see why American foreign policy is resented in many of the nations it purports to 'save'. Funding for higher education was allocated to build partnerships with American universities, rather than resurrect Iraqi ones from the rubble. Baathists with no real connection to the Party, apart from the memberships they were forced to get, were fired from their positions and prevented from being able to work again. The CPA attempted to create a private sector out of state owned enterprises, dreaming of capitalist markets while such enterprises were empty because of looting. Refusal to consult Middle Eastern experts, inability to understand societal relations and ignorance of Iraqi customs led to division by religious lines and set up a poorly representative council of Iraqis to plan out Iraq's future.
It's frustrating to read about the sheer incompetence of the CPA and the Bush administration in the handover of Iraq, particularly as we've seen Americans make the same mistakes over and over again. Refusing to consult their Vietnamese military counterparts in Vietnam, attempting to protect democracy by overthrowing elected leaders and involving themselves in disputes and conflicts without properly considering the effectiveness of their interventions. Without a doubt, the United States is a super power, but unlike the ideals proclaimed by its founders and many presidents long after, it has strayed from its standing as city on a hill, as a beacon of democracy and a protector of freedom. The world today has been changed because of American foreign policy and its need to act as global policeperson, perhaps for the worse.
July 4, 2010
Everyone knows the American occupation of Iraq has been anything but a success, but if you really want to know how and why it spiraled into a free-fall, read Imperial Life in the Emerald City. It’s an enraging document of spectacular failure--about how, during the first year of the occupation, virtually every effort to restore food rationing, medical care, electricity, factory production, traffic law, the university system, the police force, the Iraqi news media, and the writing of a new constitution was hobbled by the American authorities’ “It’s my way or the highway” attitude towards decision-making--not to mention the infighting between the CIA, the Pentagon, and the State Department.
What hurt the U.S. most, thought, was a mix of stubborn allegiance to rewarding recruits’ political (Republican) loyalties and the government’s willingness, for the sake of saving time, to seek out people who had little to no experience in the problems they were sent to Iraq to fix. (The phrase “no previous experience” appears in just about every chapter). A candidate applying for a staffing job in the Green Zone could be considered “ideal” simply because he'd worked for the Republican Party in Florida during the presidential election recount, or was a prominent Republican National Committee contributor, or simply responded that he opposed abortion and supported capital punishment when asked in a Pentagon interview.
The biggest takeaway from Imperial Life in the Emerald City is that, in the end, the war in Iraq is the Iraqis’ war, not America’s, and that perhaps our biggest failure was to think that democracy can be replicated on a one-size-fits-all basis. For his epigraph, Chandrasekaran chose a 1917 quote from T.E. Lawrence: “Do not try to do too much with your own hands. Better the Arabs do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly. It is their war, and you are to help them, not to win it for them. Actually, also, under the very odd conditions of Arabia, your practical work will not be as good as, perhaps, you think it is.”
What hurt the U.S. most, thought, was a mix of stubborn allegiance to rewarding recruits’ political (Republican) loyalties and the government’s willingness, for the sake of saving time, to seek out people who had little to no experience in the problems they were sent to Iraq to fix. (The phrase “no previous experience” appears in just about every chapter). A candidate applying for a staffing job in the Green Zone could be considered “ideal” simply because he'd worked for the Republican Party in Florida during the presidential election recount, or was a prominent Republican National Committee contributor, or simply responded that he opposed abortion and supported capital punishment when asked in a Pentagon interview.
The biggest takeaway from Imperial Life in the Emerald City is that, in the end, the war in Iraq is the Iraqis’ war, not America’s, and that perhaps our biggest failure was to think that democracy can be replicated on a one-size-fits-all basis. For his epigraph, Chandrasekaran chose a 1917 quote from T.E. Lawrence: “Do not try to do too much with your own hands. Better the Arabs do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly. It is their war, and you are to help them, not to win it for them. Actually, also, under the very odd conditions of Arabia, your practical work will not be as good as, perhaps, you think it is.”
July 8, 2007
This is primarily a collection of anecdotes of the tenure of the Coalition Provisional Authority under Bremer in Iraq, and to a lesser extent the shorter tenure of Jay Garner preceding the CPA. The purpose of the book is to illustrate how badly the U.S. screwed up the occupation of Iraq. While a few of the anecdotes don't strike me as being nearly as negative as the author colors them, on balance this book basically makes one ill, just by emphasizing how badly we were served by our government.
The lessons he draws from all of this seem to be the following:
1. The mission of creating a liberaly, moderate democracy in Iraq was unrealistic from the beginning. It remains unclear to this day to what extent this was, in fact, a driving motivation for our invasion; certainly, there were elements in the Bush administration for whom this was the principal goal, but at the same time it is clear that other parts of the administration weren't particularly interested in this at the beginning. The author does not get into the internal domestic politics of this, but he does make it clear how foolish it was to believe we could impose a political culture on Iraq.
2. By and large, the CPA was staffed by Republican loyalists, rather than by those considered the most experienced, expert and competent for the particular tasks. Those few individuals who were actually sent to Iraq because of their expertise were often ignored by CPA senior management.
3. As a result, much of the attention and energy of the staff was focused on projects which were silly, pointless or worse, rather than focused on the essential tasks of re-establishing adequate electrical power, etc.
4. Even where the U.S. addressed important project missions, the resources committed were completely inadequate and were spent wastefully.
The lessons he draws from all of this seem to be the following:
1. The mission of creating a liberaly, moderate democracy in Iraq was unrealistic from the beginning. It remains unclear to this day to what extent this was, in fact, a driving motivation for our invasion; certainly, there were elements in the Bush administration for whom this was the principal goal, but at the same time it is clear that other parts of the administration weren't particularly interested in this at the beginning. The author does not get into the internal domestic politics of this, but he does make it clear how foolish it was to believe we could impose a political culture on Iraq.
2. By and large, the CPA was staffed by Republican loyalists, rather than by those considered the most experienced, expert and competent for the particular tasks. Those few individuals who were actually sent to Iraq because of their expertise were often ignored by CPA senior management.
3. As a result, much of the attention and energy of the staff was focused on projects which were silly, pointless or worse, rather than focused on the essential tasks of re-establishing adequate electrical power, etc.
4. Even where the U.S. addressed important project missions, the resources committed were completely inadequate and were spent wastefully.
June 10, 2008
This book was well done; however, a lot of focus was on the negative. MSM tends to already be trying to drag down what is going on there; Not saying it's all rosy, but as a retired Military person, I know exactly what the cost is in combat and "occupation" force, and really would like to see someone not use this war (and that's what it is) for political badgering because you don't like how the administration is doing things, so much as an opportunity to observe and report and let smart people decide what is truly going on. It's tough enough for the command structure to keep people motivated in a long war without those they are protecting (as in free speech) using it to focus on how things aren't perfect. They never will be... but why not focus on something positive for once. I rarely hear about the good things we are doing, unless I open the blogs of military people doing the hard job, being away from their families, helping a nation to recover. And at the same time, making sure the other nations around this one do not get too medieval in trying to grab land from the weak. This topic deserves a long, many-volume review, not a sound bite. That said, many things in this book were enlightening and brought out the true nature of those in power below the Presidential level. I've been in charge of thousands of people, and there is so much that is never reported that cannot or should not be brought to light...and so much that is neglected which SHOULD be highlighted.
September 25, 2010
I started reading on a Friday night and could not put it down until on reaching page 274 I simply couldn't keep my eyes open.
This is a shocking, damning picture of the idealogically driven attempts of the Coalition Provisional Authority to rebuild Iraq after the fall of Sadaam Hussein. The utter naivity of some at the highest levels is sad, but unforgivably there is also deliberate refusal to engage with the country's actual situation in lieu of creating a utopian America of the Middle East.
Chandrasekaran's portrait is scathing but achieves this through an almost laconic prose style that largely lets the idiocy and amorality speak for itself. There is so much damning material that almost anyone could have pulled together an interesting account but Chandrasekaran charts the events with understated skill and an exceptional eye for the absurd.
He rightly captures the seemingly few good souls who fought against the prevailing winds of incompetence and therefore achieves a balance in the account as well as relief from an almost unmitigated tragedy.
I am wiser for having read this sobering and important book.
This is a shocking, damning picture of the idealogically driven attempts of the Coalition Provisional Authority to rebuild Iraq after the fall of Sadaam Hussein. The utter naivity of some at the highest levels is sad, but unforgivably there is also deliberate refusal to engage with the country's actual situation in lieu of creating a utopian America of the Middle East.
Chandrasekaran's portrait is scathing but achieves this through an almost laconic prose style that largely lets the idiocy and amorality speak for itself. There is so much damning material that almost anyone could have pulled together an interesting account but Chandrasekaran charts the events with understated skill and an exceptional eye for the absurd.
He rightly captures the seemingly few good souls who fought against the prevailing winds of incompetence and therefore achieves a balance in the account as well as relief from an almost unmitigated tragedy.
I am wiser for having read this sobering and important book.
June 9, 2011
What a clusterf**k.
February 5, 2021
This is a book on the chronicles of American imperialism in Iraq— which the author likens to the American-demarcated “emerald city” of air conditioning, dining halls serving disgusting American processed food, self-inflated pompous politicians in a country broken by invasion. Here you will discover the enormous waste of taxpayer money by outsourcing >1b dollars to Halliburton to transport fuel. The relentless optimism of Republicans that they paved the way for Iraq’s “democracy” in spite of failing to weaken Shiite insurgents. The ludicrous nature of resource allocation, resulting in poor public spending on education, necessary utilities, while bolstering the pockets of private military and dubious subcontractors. Even if you were young like me when this invasion happened, it’s still a sobering reminder of how despotism hasn’t been eliminated despite glittering rhetoric of democracy and progress.
February 20, 2018
We set out to build Iraq with minimal, if any, preparation. We contracted many people who had little to no experience in post-conflict rebuilding and some with no qualifications for the project they were hired to run. We largely ignored the Iraqi population. We didn't listen to contrary opinion. What could possibly go wrong?
The result is a Catch-22 like atmosphere without the laughs. It would be hilarious if it was a novel but unfortunately it's non-fiction. Some may read it as a political jab at the Bush administration and all those in charge of the situation, I don't read it that way. There is no presumption that a liberal policy would have made things better. We took an idealistic approach to rebuilding the country and assumed the best case scenario be the result. When things went wrong there was nobody willing to listen and no ability to change. The result was civil war. Would a better policy also have resulted in a civil war? Possibly. But if it did, in all likelihood the opposition would have been fewer in numbers. Our lack of preparation let us down. Our inability to face reality let us down. We let the Iraqi nation down. All we really need to do was take a step back, but instead we dictated the terms of the rebuilding. And failed. We should have listened to Lawrence of Arabia.
The result is a Catch-22 like atmosphere without the laughs. It would be hilarious if it was a novel but unfortunately it's non-fiction. Some may read it as a political jab at the Bush administration and all those in charge of the situation, I don't read it that way. There is no presumption that a liberal policy would have made things better. We took an idealistic approach to rebuilding the country and assumed the best case scenario be the result. When things went wrong there was nobody willing to listen and no ability to change. The result was civil war. Would a better policy also have resulted in a civil war? Possibly. But if it did, in all likelihood the opposition would have been fewer in numbers. Our lack of preparation let us down. Our inability to face reality let us down. We let the Iraqi nation down. All we really need to do was take a step back, but instead we dictated the terms of the rebuilding. And failed. We should have listened to Lawrence of Arabia.
October 31, 2025
The US' occupation of Iraq in 2003 was a complete failure. An utter shit show. Efforts to rebuild and convert the country into a democratic state were poorly planned and executed, souring relations even more so with the Iraqis. The most shocking part is despite all the evidence amounting to failure was how deluded leadership was in believing they were helping. They made things so much worse and should never have occupied Iraq. The book was incredibly detailed and probably waffles on a little too much eg I didn't need such extensive detail about the electricity grid and attempts at company privatization. Yes all relevant information which contributed to painting a broader picture but the finer details of it all made for dry reading. I prefer an overview of such things when first touching on a topic like this. if im interested then ill seek out more detailed material but thats just me
February 5, 2018
Imperial Life In The Emerald City (Inside Iraq’s Green Zone) by Rajiv Chandrasekaran is a fantastic look into the failures of nation building by bereaucrats and politicians who tried to bring only American ideas and policies to Iraq, without taking into account what the citizens of Iraq might want.
The book shows in clear detail what not to do, not to try, and not to enforce upon a people with their own culture and customs. However not everything done was a bad idea, some things were widely beneficial and hugely popular amongst the Iraqis. This book makes others I have read about the American missteps in Iraq look like magazine coverage compared to the authors detail of events. It’s no wonder this book made finalist for National Book Award. Also a National Bestseller. It’s a thrilling book to read.
The book shows in clear detail what not to do, not to try, and not to enforce upon a people with their own culture and customs. However not everything done was a bad idea, some things were widely beneficial and hugely popular amongst the Iraqis. This book makes others I have read about the American missteps in Iraq look like magazine coverage compared to the authors detail of events. It’s no wonder this book made finalist for National Book Award. Also a National Bestseller. It’s a thrilling book to read.
April 29, 2019
Imperial life in the Emerald City is a journey into the world of post war Iraq reconstruction, written in 2006, depicting mostly the work of Coalition Provisional Authority.
And it is a wild ride. Corruption, incompetence, good intentions gone bad and some meagre achievements (like Bremer´s move to keep KRG as part of Iraq) are depicted in a journalistic, sometimes a bit emotional way. But the author is mostly fair in his judgements: and quite often you are going to be surprised by someone obviously liked by the author is suddenly failing miserably.
Worthy read for everyone interested in Iraq, post war reconstruction, administration and even project management.
And it is a wild ride. Corruption, incompetence, good intentions gone bad and some meagre achievements (like Bremer´s move to keep KRG as part of Iraq) are depicted in a journalistic, sometimes a bit emotional way. But the author is mostly fair in his judgements: and quite often you are going to be surprised by someone obviously liked by the author is suddenly failing miserably.
Worthy read for everyone interested in Iraq, post war reconstruction, administration and even project management.
May 6, 2021
Well written, with vivid examples. I loved the structure of the Green Zone scenes interspaced with longer form chapters detailing the occupation. Very much enjoyed this book. I enjoyed the theme of Imperial decay, a Versailles style bubble in the desert. Could be a little heavy with detail and names.
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