I was going to start this post by describing the Iraq phase IV campaign as the “DIY of nation building.” But it is far, far worse. It is more akin to hiring a bunch of cowboy builders who have no clue of their trade and are only out to fleece their customers. Rummy, Cheney, Feith, Franks and Co are the O’Reilly’s of strategy and we (including the poor sods in Iraq) are the bemused beneficiaries of their handy-work: “Where is door? Door is gone…”
I’m on my 12th Iraq War book – read Packer, Ricks, Gordon & Trainor, Woodward, Franks, Wright, Atkinston, Herring & Rangwala, and a bunch of others – and now it’s the turn of Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Imperial Life in the Emerald City. Actually, I had to stop reading Iraq War books because it got so damn depressing (spent the Summer reading Harry Potter to recover my wide-eyed enthusiasm for life and all that).
This is a sorry tale of rank corruption and staggering incompetence. Incompetence on the part of US political and military leaders to think that they could just walk away from Iraq six weeks after conquering the country. Corruption – both political and financial – at every level: in the selection of Bushofants to staff the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) instead of folk who actually knew something about rebuilding and running a country; in the awarding of billions of dollars of contracts to pals of Cheney and his ilk; and in the cheating by US contractors who did things like repaint old Iraq equipment, and then charge the US taxpayer for the cost of buying and flying in the “new” kit.
Chandrasekaran’s book exposes all of this through a series of brilliant, often amusing, observations of life in the Green Zone. “Emerald City” is what the occupants of the Green Zone took to calling their patch of unreality – with bars, pools, and 24 hour electricity – in Iraq: the reference is, obviously, to the Wizard of Oz.
And there are some real gems in this book. Like the story of Custer Battles, whose website hysterically has the tag line: “Turning Risk into Opportunity.” This private military contractor never actually had a major contract before Iraq. Basically it was two fellas, one of whom flew into Iraq to scout around for opportunity. Opportunity came when they got a contract to repair and secure passenger facilities at Baghdad airport. They beat more established contractors because they promised to do the impossible (have things up and running inside two weeks) at the lowest cost. They then managed to persuade the CPA to hand over two million dollars in cash (and we’re talking cash bricks in a bag) and began to frantically buy the capability they claimed to already have. This crowd went on to massively overcharge the US government on contract after contract. Eventually in September 2004, the Pentagon barred them from receiving any further contracts but by that stage Custer Battles had weaseled $100 million out of the US taxpayer. But I suppose with a name like Custer Battles, what can you expect.
Not everybody in the story was corrupt and/or incompetent. Good people tried their best to make a difference, but they were grossly under-resourced for the task. Nice example is the tragically misguided project to privatize Iraqi industry (a project driven by Republican ideology). This excerpt from Chandrasekaran gives a flavour.
When the trio (from the CPA) met with a team of Germans to discuss how factories in the former East Germany had been privatized, the CPA team was told that the Germans had eight thousand people working on the project. ” How many do you guys have?” one of the Germans asked.
“You’re looking at all of them,” Corliss responded.
The German laughed and asked again. “No, how many people work for you.”
“No, this is it. Three people,” Corliss responded.
“Don’t bother starting,” the German said.
If I was American I would be extremely angry reading this book. As a British taxpayer who cares about our role in this fiasco – not to say the cost in British and Iraqi lives – I am moderately angry. And I think I have read enough to begin to pull out some big lessons from this affair:
1. Don’t invade a country unless you intend to pick up the pieces (didn’t Powell say something similar to Bush beforehand?)
2. Don’t let idiots run the show, and don’t retain the O’Reilly’s.
3. Special lesson for the Brits – next time, think about saying to our American allies: “We might sit this one out. Another cucumber sandwich anybody?”
Friday, 26, October, 2007 at 1:52 pm |
Theo,
Do you understand a bit better how some of us in Yankeeland are less than willing to follow the people who led us into Baghdad along on other foreign adventures?
Friday, 26, October, 2007 at 2:29 pm |
Tequila,
Having looked at your other posts on this site I presume that you are alluding to a potential strike on Iran when you say that ’some of us in Yankeeland are less than willing to follow the people who led us into Baghdad along on other foreign adventures’, but Iran is a wholly different kettle of fish. US involvement in Iran to stop their nuclear weapons programme would not amount to an occupation in the same way as their invasion of Iraq – merely a strike to try to set back (or, in the best case, remove) their nuclear capability. This is not least because of the more limited aims in taking action over Iran, but also because the US military would be simply incapable (even with contractor help) to launch an operation of similar scale to that of OIF against Iran.
If I am incorrect in making such an assumption then please accept my apologies.
Tim
Friday, 26, October, 2007 at 4:05 pm |
Yes Tequila, I do appreciate your concerns. Certainly I do. But I also agree with Tim that this is indeed, a completely different kettle of fish. One thing that wd cause me to hesitate is if Gates came out strongly against air strikes. Gates has a head on his shoulders. Currently he is advocating a multilateral approach to containing Iran but crucially he says that “all options” are still on the table.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-10-16-gates-iran_N.htm
But if he said, out and out, no way hosay to air strikes, then I wd reconsider.
Friday, 26, October, 2007 at 4:57 pm |
No halfway decent SecDef would ever say something that would ever limit the President’s choices. At the end of the day Gates serves at the pleasure of the President, where the rot begins.
Tim, Theo – This Administration’s record of (1) shaping intelligence to fit an already-decided policy (2) promoting ideology over competence in crucial national security decisions (3) stunning incompetence and thoughtlessness (4) proclivity for force over all other options (5) weak and confused decision-making chain does not give you any misgivings at all about striking Iran?
Best intelligence about Iran indicates that they are far from producing nuclear materials for a weapon. Certainly they will not possess a weapon before 2009 even in the most alarmist pictures. Better by far to leave it for the next Administration. I will remain adamant in not trusting this Administration anywhere near an Iran strike. Their track record of mendacity and incompetence is far too great and they have gotten far too my brothers and sisters in arms killed. They deserve nothing but contempt.
Sunday, 28, October, 2007 at 9:49 am |
I have to say when I read Imperial Life etc. I went from anger out the other side. I’ve read widely on the war and surrounding issues (and indeed read widely across all sorts of disciplines along with masses of fiction) but am always very conscious of the brilliant exchange between Otto & Wanda in “A Fish Called Wanda” as follows (from memory):
She calls Otto an ape…
Otto: “Apes don’t read philosophy.”
Wanda: “Yes they do, they just don’t understand it.”
Anyway, it makes Catch-22 look like a documentary. You neglected to mention the 24 year old put in charge of getting the stock exchange re-opened whose qualifications for the job were that he had worked for a republican politician as a staffer. Mental, just mental. And of course completely unforgiveable.
This is where I agree with Tequila. You and Tim have effectively used the oldest excuse in the book “This is different”. In one sense you are right (it’s about Iran) but in the greater sense you are wrong: the same bunch of incompetent morons will be and are responsible for controlling and determining the actions taken and outcomes of those actions. They deserve far more than contempt.
Sunday, 28, October, 2007 at 7:02 pm |
“I had to stop reading Iraq War books because it got so damn depressing”
I hope you’re over that by next summer–I’m furiously trying to finish my “Iraq and the Evolution of American Strategy” book so that it will be out then.
Sunday, 28, October, 2007 at 10:56 pm |
Steve: will always make time for your work. Nice title – sounds terrifically tempting. You publising pieces from this in any journals beforehand?
Sunday, 28, October, 2007 at 11:11 pm |
“This is where I agree with Tequila. You and Tim have effectively used the oldest excuse in the book “This is different”. In one sense you are right (it’s about Iran) but in the greater sense you are wrong: the same bunch of incompetent morons will be and are responsible for controlling and determining the actions taken and outcomes of those actions.”
I’m less sympathetic to the case for bombing than Dr Betz or Prof Farrell, but in fairness it’s not as though the fact it’s Iran is the ONLY difference.
I’m not sure whether anyone’s mentioned it yet, but while the key focus has been on the fact that the Iranian might go Snooker Loopy and just start indiscriminately bombing stuff, I think it’s worth noting that one of the key consequences – certainly more likely – of Iran getting The Bomb is that it may well set off a regional arms race in which the major Arab countries (notably Egypt and Saudi) start racing for the bomb too.
Now, I think there’s an argument that if everyone in the Middle East was tooled up with nukes it would actually be MORE stable and not less, but I’m not all that convinced by it. Setting aside the “They’re nuts!” part of the argument, it seems to me an open question whether the regional instability caused by bombing Iran will outweigh the regional instability caused by Iran going nuclear.
Monday, 29, October, 2007 at 9:29 am |
Anthony: I’m completely w/ you on the regional stability/instability argument. I think that I said as much in a previously post on Virtually Theo (maybe, maybe not). Sprinkling the ME w/ nukes is unlikely to make it any more stable – it wd prob make leaders think twice before sending in the troops, but there is a very sizeable literature on the risks of accidential and inadvertent nuclear war. And it doesn’t look good.
We may expect new nuclear states in the region to have fairly crude nuclear command and control systems that approximate the reliability of US and Soviet nuclear C2 in the early Cold War years. And there were plenty – far too many – screw ups and close calls in 1950s-1960s. Amazing we’re still around really.
[Say Anthony, when you going to start blogging on KOW then?]
Monday, 29, October, 2007 at 11:15 am |
Thanks for the offer, but I’m afraid not. I happen to be at home right now for family reasons, which gives me 24 hour access to the world wide computer infoweb meganet, but in Oxford I’ve got limited net access (especially late evening and weekends, when I have none) and very, very little time on my hands. When I post comments on here from Oxford, it’s generally as part of a two minute break from writing a tutorial essay in the computer labs – if I get drawn into spending any more time than that I’ll be stuffed.
Monday, 29, October, 2007 at 11:19 am |
Anthony: perfectly understood. Blogging is a bit of a curse. Cheaper than a drug habit, but probably more time consuming…
Monday, 29, October, 2007 at 12:00 pm |
Theo: I’m stealing bits of an article on transformation that I had in Defence Studies, and some from my SSI monograph “Learning From Iraq.” The basic theme is that Iraq has been a driver of broader elements of American strategy since the 1980s, and that has led us in some dangerous directions. Viz, until recently, it reinfoced our tendency to confuse battefield victory with strategic success, it showed the shortcomings of an all-or-nothing approch to the use of force, and it illustrated the problems we have with cross-cultural incomprehension. Now I’m afraid its led to an infatuation with counterinsurgency as we once again prepare to fight the last war.
Monday, 29, October, 2007 at 8:40 pm |
Thanks Steve. I shall make sure to download your SSI monograph and look fwd to reading it.
Re: your point about confusing battlefield success w/ strategic victory – I wonder to what extent this is the product of America’s technocratic approach to war. One may argue that this leads to a focus on the technological means of war including technologies such as systems analysis as well as the whizz-bang stuff. What gets lost in such a strategic culture is the art of strategy.
On the problems of cross-cultural comprehension: you yanks tend to get a hard time off the Brits on this. But presumedly this is a problem for all cultures. So how much worse is the United States and why?
Tuesday, 30, October, 2007 at 1:53 pm |
Anthony – for clarity I was not suggesting that there was a generally ocmmon issue between Iran and other issues – what I’m saying is that all of these situations have to be dealt with by a bunch of people who have demonstrated themselves to be monumentally, stupefyingly, incompetent and this for me should be the straetigc focus of anyone who is serious about addressing issues such as Iran. How can you sort Iran when you canlt effectively do…well…anything. Except perhaps torture people.
Also, both you and Theo appear guilty of making the early years of the arms race symmetric with the possible course of events in Iran\the middle east. I say guilty because I think that is at best a disingenuous argument and at worst misleading reasoning. How would you both have predicted the arms race to have progressed if at it’s inception there was another power in the world that was hostile to the US and already had 12,000 nuclear weapons, vastly more military power and monumental economic resources ?
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