|
Imperial Life in the Emerald City |  | Author: Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Publisher: Vintage
Category: eBooks
This item is no longer available
Rating:  175 reviews
Sales Rank: 8254
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Pages: 336
Number Of Items: 1
Dewey Decimal Number: 956.704431
ASIN: B000JMKTK0
Publication Date: September 19, 2006
| |
| Similar Items:
| |
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
The Green Zone, Baghdad, 2003: in this walled-off compound of swimming pools and luxurious amenities, Paul Bremer and his Coalition Provisional Authority set out to fashion a new, democratic Iraq. Staffed by idealistic aides chosen primarily for their views on issues such as abortion and capital punishment, the CPA spent the crucial first year of occupation pursuing goals that had little to do with the immediate needs of a postwar nation: flat taxes instead of electricity and deregulated health care instead of emergency medical supplies.
In this acclaimed firsthand account, the former Baghdad bureau chief of The Washington Post gives us an intimate portrait of life inside this Oz-like bubble, which continued unaffected by the growing mayhem outside. This is a quietly devastating tale of imperial folly, and the definitive history of those early days when things went irrevocably wrong in Iraq.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
|
| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 175
 What results when political loyalty is placed above qualifications.... July 18, 2010
Yoda (Hadera, Israel)
A review of this book would have to start, first and foremost, with what this book is and is not. It is definitely not the story of the run-up to the Iraq war, the actual military invasion or the counter-insurgency. Instead it tells the tale of the those hired to engage in the civilian reconstruction of the country after the "official" end of hostilities (i.e., after President Bush `s famous aircraft carrier landing underneath the "Mission Accomplished" banner) until one year afterwards (the approximate time pro-consul Bremmer departed the scene).
As many Amazon reviewers have noted in their reviews, the book does an extraordinary job at pointing out how pervasive political loyalty was in hiring. There are many stories of very well qualified individuals being passed up for positions so that political hacks from organizations like the American Enterprise or Hoover or Stanford Institutes or those with "reasonable" political views (i.e., anti-abortion) could be hired instead. Examples included medical doctors hired to administer Iraq's hospitals and medical infrastructure without any third world experience and a financial administrator to run Iraq's equivalent of the Security and Exchange Commission who was straight out of school without a single day of work experience. The hiring of these "yes" men had results that had the obvious predictable results (i.e., an inability to get the country's hospital systems and stock market exchanges up and running).
Before Christ was born Confucius had the following exchange with one of his students (Analects of Confucius 13.15): "Is there one single maxim that could ruin a country?", the student asked. Confucius replied: "Mere words could not achieve this. There is this saying , however: `The only pleasure of being a prince is never having to suffer contradiction'. If you are right and no one contradicts you, that's fine; but if you are wrong and no one contradicts you - is this not almost a case of `one single maxim that could ruin a country'?" The placing of political loyalty over qualifications in hiring clearly illustrated the dangers Confucius was attempting to point out.
Another consequence stemming from the placement of political loyalty over and above qualifications, though related to it and one that few other reviewers seem to have commented on, was the resulting idealist detachment from reality that resulted. The 21 year old hired to get Iraq's stock exchange up and running, for example, did not want to settle for just that simple objective but instead strived to set up the leading stock market in the Arab world. Considering the "on the ground" facts this proved impossible. Hence instead of, possibly, achieving the objective of just getting the stock exchange up and running at its pre-invasion level of efficiency and transparency the fool could not even get a stock market to open up at all. Another political loyalist, an administrator responsible for Iraq's university system, instead of striving to get the universities open by supplying textbooks and desks did his very best to push making Iraq's university system comparable to those in Western nations. Again, considering the "facts on the ground", this proved a fantasy and the university system could not even open during his reign.
All of this reminds one of the English admiral Lord Hood's actions at Toulon against the French Directorate (in the early 1790s). There, he had a number of objectives open to him. One was destroying the French fleet. Another was establishing a beachhead for the anti-royalist forces to rally against The Directorate. A third was to foster a counter-revolution by supporting the royalist forces already gathered there. Any one of these may have been achievable realistically. Instead Hood tried to accomplish all three and, inevitably, failed.
 Don't base this book by it's cover May 10, 2010
Movie Buff (California)
1 out of 6 found this review helpful
I saw the movie, and wanted to have more details about what was going on. I thought this book would have more detail, it did, but it didn't have anything in the movie. It shows Matt Damon on cover but it's all political nothing with the movie, no Damon character, no Delta force, not the movie at all. The book is very interesting, but feel ripped off that they didn't clarify what it was about and then used the movies picture to sell it.
Brilliant farce of disastrous fiasco April 27, 2010
technoguy (Rugby)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
A mission doomed to failure given the neo-con government,esconsed in the certainties of their supreme self-belief,the traditions of rugged individualism,the blindness of their self-righteousness,their faith post-conquest,Iraqis would be grateful and dancing in the streets.There was a lack of post-war planning,post-war chaos ensued.The absence of WMD fuelled the fire,so did the disbanding of the Iraqi army and low-level de- Baathification.You should also plan for what you hadn't planned.They occupied an Arab country,some of who thought the CPA acted like Lawrence of Arabia,but Lawrence said:"Do not try to do too much with your own hands.Better the Arabs do it tolerably,than that you do it perfectly"(quoted by Chanrasekaran).The victor's occupation of the Coalition Provisional Authority(CPA), ran from April 2003 to June 2004.There was an arrogant assumption that what was good for America was good for Iraq.This is no polemic and there is no questioning of the invasion itself, Chandrasekaran's deadpan approach is more alarming and incredible.He is an editor of The Washington Post.By the
way,the book's cover is a travesty.Greengrass's film,Bourne-in-Baghdad,uses this worthy book,very loosely.
Like the president ,the viceroy surrounded himself with unseasoned advisers,because they valued loyalty above all else.Republicans only and people for Bush's`mission' in Iraq were employed.This led to people with no experience, ill-prepared,for the tasks they had been assigned.Billions of dollars and resources were wasted doing the wrong things,especially devoted to administration,privatisation, than all projects related to education,human rights, democracy and governance combined.To the soldiers,CPA meant Can't Produce Anything.The post-war looting of the country cost over a billion dollars, to replace the infrastructure.A corrupt security company swindled millions of dollars from the U.S. government.Some of the most experienced Arabists in the State Department were barred from serving in Iraq because they were thought politically suspect by the Pentagon.The book, an objective,fact-based account of what happened in the Green Zone, captures the surreal unreality and disconnection of life on the inside from life on the outside.Most Baghdad residents were only getting 3-4hours electricity a day,while those inside the bubble had a 24 hour supply.We get the neocon's yi-hah imposition of American-style democracy,while Baghdad became the most dangerous place on earth.The only coalition,Bush and the Pentagon;Paul Bremner, their acting,preppy head of state,using pork-barrel food and philosophy.
 Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone April 16, 2010
D. Harrell
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I wanted to read the book before I saw the movie Green Zone. I kept thinking the book related to the movie but the book is a true story and the movie is more what if... After seeing the movie and reading the book it makes you wonder how true the movie may of been.
Green Zone April 14, 2010
S. Kubik
0 out of 6 found this review helpful
Saw the movie and wanted to read the book. Gave it to my husband for a gift.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 175
|
|
|
Contact History Edition
CERTAIN CONTENT THAT APPEARS ON THIS SITE COMES FROM AMAZON SERVICES LLC. THIS CONTENT IS PROVIDED ‘AS IS’ AND IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE OR REMOVAL AT ANY TIME.Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |
