Rajiv Chandrasekaran: How Early US Failures Created the Iraq of Today

It is Friday morning and Rajiv Chandrasekaran takes the stage. He pulls the microphone a little closer to his lips and welcomes the coffee-sipping audience of students, writers, activists.

“Iraqis believed they should have been free to determine their own destiny,” he said. “They were not a vanquished nation in need of overhaul at foreign hands.”

Chandrasekaran’s powerful address opened Iraq at the Crossroads: Protecting Refugees, Rescuing Our Allies, and Empowering Iraqi Law, hosted at Rutgers School of Law last Friday.

Chandrasekaran, author of Imperial Life in the Emerald City and National Editor for The Washington Post, served as the newspaper’s bureau chief in Baghdad from April 2003 to October 2004. From the Green Zone—or “neoconservative terrarium” as he has called it—Chandrasekaran reported on what he soon recognized as a dismal US failure to implement an effective strategy for post-Saddam Iraq:

I was appalled by how we Americans were squandering our window of opportunity to build stability in Iraq. Instead of focusing principally on creating jobs, the economic advisers inside the Green Zone set about rewriting Iraq's tax code. They spent countless hours drafting laws to protect genetically modified seeds, copyrighted movies and even the designs of microchips, instead of devoting the necessary resources to increase electricity production or repair hospitals.

Chandrasekaran explained how the absence of sound, structured policy and misplaced priorities can be understood in three pieces:

First, PEOPLE. The U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), which came to Baghdad after Saddam’s government fell, “sent the loyal and the willing.” When interviewed for positions by Pentagon officials, CPA hopefuls were asked questions like: “Are you a member of the Republican Party?” “What is your position on capital punishment?” and “How do you feel about Roe v. Wade?”

While fervent support of the Administration and a set of conservative, partisan values appeared necessary for employment with the CPA, international experience and knowledge of the Middle East were not— “More than half the CPA staff got their first passports to go to Iraq.”

Second, PLACE. Centered in Iraq’s Green Zone, members of the CPA had little or no immediate understanding of the chaos and ruin that was quickly befalling Iraq. Outside the Baghdad walls there was no clean or running water, looting and lawlessness erupted in the absence of government police forces, waste filled the streets, and Iraqi families took refuge in their homes waiting for the speedy delivery of democracy promised by President Bush.

Third, POLICY. Tax code reform took the top agenda seat while “New Deal-like policies” that would employ Iraqis to sweep the streets, maintain clean water systems, and restore electricity were not considered. Following the March 2003 intervention, looting, lawlessness, and traffic jams paralyzed the city as drivers sat in jammed intersections below Baghdad’s lifeless traffic lights. While the CPA was walled up in Baghdad’s Green Zone rewriting copyright laws, Iraqi civilians worried about the safety of their children and wondered how to educate their children at home now that schools were closing. Copyright infringement was probably not in the forefront of Iraqis’ minds.

Mr. Chandrasekaran explained that an understanding of post-invasion Iraq is crucial for understanding Iraq today. Without a plan for the months after Saddam was removed from power, the US government created many of the problems that have plagued the country after five years at war. Instead of working with pre-existing infrastructures of Iraq’s government, such as the city police forces and the military, the CPA and Washington elite insisted upon a complete overhaul. With unqualified leadership in Iraq, complete isolation within the fortifications of Baghdad’s Green Zone, and policies that failed to address the most critical and immediate concerns of the Iraqi people, the United States was signed up for a disorganized, violent and lengthy involvement from the very beginning.

In January Iraq will host provincial elections, an opportunity to elect new, more representative leaders, making Baghdad more directly accountable to Iraqi constituents. Unlike the last provincial elections in 2005, all of Iraq’s communities are expected to turn out in force, and Iraqi voters will have the opportunity to vote for individual candidates rather than faceless “party lists.”

Chandrasekaran suggested that as Baghdad’s government becomes one of the people, there will be more room to address the needs of Iraqis. Thanking the Rutgers students and community for addressing the urgent Iraqi humanitarian crisis, he said that peace and security can only be built with great focus on the needs of the Iraqi people.

*Hey there! If you have not yet joined the 14,000 Americans who have signed The Humanitarian Pledge, please do so today! Help us put the humanitarian needs of vulnerable Iraqis at the center of the U.S. policy debate on Iraq. You can also help us raise public awareness by sharing this one-page backgrounder about the crisis with your community.

Economic Surge

"The United States needs to find fresh approaches that won't feed the sectarian dynamic and will address the needs of ordinary Iraqis...The surge we should be pushing is a political one, and even more critically, an economic one."

EPIC has been saying this for months. We’re glad to find that someone has been listening.

Fareed Zakaria's recent op-ed calls for a new course in Iraq: An economic surge, not a military one. He argues that it would help to undo the damage caused by the CPA's attempt at economic liberalization and free-market reorientation of the Iraqi economy (for more on this, check out Imperial Life in the Green Zone by Rajiv Chandrasekaran). Reopening state-run enterprises that the CPA previously shut down would provide income to poverty-stricken Iraqis:

"One of the less-remarked-upon blunders of the Coalition Provisional Authority was that—consumed by free-market ideology—it shut down all of Iraq's state-owned enterprises. This crippled the bulk of Iraq's non-oil economy, threw hundreds of thousands of workers into the streets and further alienated the Sunnis, who were the managerial class of the country."

It would also take able-bodied members of the currently disenfranchised Iraqi labor force off the streets and out of the very militias and insurgent groups the U.S. is battling.

If it sounds like a simple solution, that's because it is. All Congress has to do, writes Zakaria, is appropriate $100 million to get Iraqi state-run companies back in operation:

"It would cost $100 million to restart all of [the state run enterprises] and employ more than 150,000 Iraqis—$100 million. That's as much money as the American military will spend in Iraq in the next 12 hours."

Zakaria's lucid and parsimonious recommendation deserves everyone's attention. Despite the terrible headlines about violence in Iraq, it is important to remember that alternative solutions are being put on the table, and successful humanitarian efforts are already underway throughout the country. This is not a lost cause, and we owe it to the Iraqis and ourselves to not treat it as such. Keep checking back here for more discussion and analysis of non-military solutions for the Iraq crisis.

Go here for the article in full.

A Day of Reckoning for Bremer

The failure of the CPA to provide oversight of reconstruction programs in Iraq under their 2003-2004 watch has once again boiled to the surface of national media attention. Case in point: this story from today's Washington Post.

Allegedly, goes the article, some American civilians and service members directed Iraqi reconstruction funds toward an American businessman in exchange for $3,200 watches, swanky cars, and top-of-the-line laptops.

"'This indictment alleges that the defendants flagrantly enriched themselves at the expense of the Iraqi people -- the very people they were there to help,' said Paul J. McNulty, U.S. deputy attorney general."

If you're finding it easy to get mad at these particular crooks, don't spend all your ire in one place. You'll need plenty of it to cover all the instances of corruption and unadulterated incompetence in Iraq that took place under CPA rule. Brace yourselves, this isn't pretty:

Exhibit A: SIGIR Quarterly Report, January 2005, details the massive scope of money mismanagement by CPA.

Exhibit B: The Special Inspector General of Iraq Reconstruction himself gives testimony before the House Committee of Government Oversight & Reform. He says that:

"The CPA’s internal controls for approximately $8.8 billion in DFI funds disbursed to Iraqi ministries through the national budget process failed to provide sufficient accountability for the use of those funds. As noted in the report, the CPA did not establish or implement sufficient managerial, financial, and contractual controls to ensure DFI funds were used in a transparent manner."

Exhibit C: Former CPA director Bremer, before the same committee this past Tuesday, offered this explanation for the unaccounted $12 billion:

"The [SIGIR] report implies that we should have gone much further, seeking to impose modern financial control systems on the disbursement of these Iraqi funds by Iraqi ministries themselves--and this in less than a year, on a failed state in the middle of a war. I know of no one who spent meaningful time in Baghdad working with the Iraqi ministries who thought this was possible under the conditions we faced."

Bremer goes on to say that US and IMF pre-war planners felt that Iraqi ministries were the proper channels for distribution of the Development Fund for Iraq money, despite the ministries' notorious reputations for corruption. Bremer curtails his mea culpa for CPA's fund-dispersment related shortcomings with his statements that planning that denied the reality of the situation in Iraq is what really brought about the squandering of these funds.

But then there is the ugly suspicion that tracking the money was of dubious importance to Bremer and the CPA. It was, after all, Iraqi money generated from oil revenues and therefore did not consist of American taxpayer dollars. This Washington Post summary of Bremer's testimony has the details.

Maybe they got a discount

Three different Washington Post writers recently released three very interesting books that all deal to some degree with the war in Iraq. The first book by reporter Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Imperial Life in the Emerald City, exposes the ineptitude of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) during the two year period in which it governed Iraq. Chandrasekaran writes that when it came to staffing the CPA, experience was regarded as lesser qualification to loyalty.

"Many of those chosen by O'Beirne's office to work for the Coalition Provisional Authority, which ran Iraq's government from April 2003 to June 2004, lacked vital skills and experience. A 24-year-old who had never worked in finance -- but had applied for a White House job -- was sent to reopen Baghdad's stock exchange. The daughter of a prominent neoconservative commentator and a recent graduate from an evangelical university for home-schooled children were tapped to manage Iraq's $13 billion budget, even though they didn't have a background in accounting."

Bob Woodward’ book, State of Denial, his third on the Bush administration, claims that there was considerable disagreement within the higher ranks of the White House over how to conduct the war. So much so that at one point a it seemed no one’s job was safe.

"A second term traditionally leads to personnel changes. The question was whether one of them would involve Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld. Card had to approach the issue with delicacy. Iraq was the centerpiece of everything now, and the president was clearly predisposed not to do anything that would disrupt the war effort. If Rumsfeld left, what would the impact be on overall momentum and on the morale of those who were doing the fighting? Rumsfeld had a virtual monopoly on defense contacts with the president, so there was no way the president could get independent information to answer those kinds of questions."

Woodward also reveals that while in May of 2006 Bush was speaking optimistically about the progress Iraq was making, secret reports that were being circulated at the time which Bush surely saw, contradicted what he said. Woodward presented this as a major bombshell on his recent appearance on 60 Minutes; however, as I recall there were a couple of official reports that were made public at the time, that showed increasing casualties, etc. It wasn’t really a secret that the situation in Iraq was getting worse.

Karen DeYoung’s Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell covers Powell’s entire career. DeYoung recently posted an excerpt of the book detailing the immediate events leading up to Powell’s infamous U.N. presentation. The excerpt describes Powell as being at odds with the administration in many instances, but in the end his soldier’s sense of loyalty won out.

"Powell had constantly found himself on the losing side of regular ideological combat inside the Bush administration, particularly against Rumsfeld and the powerful vice president, Dick Cheney, over Iraq and a host of other foreign policy issues. Though Powell had scored some victories, the rumored humiliations had been real. He had been purposely cut out of major foreign policy decisions more than once, and his advice often had gone unheeded or been only grudgingly accepted by the president. Why hadn't he resigned? The easy answer had the virtue of truth: Soldiers didn't quit when they disagreed with the decisions of their commanders. The fact that he had been out of uniform for nearly a decade was irrelevant to Powell; he would be a soldier until he drew his last breath."