Baghdad Reporter Discusses the Americans in the Bubble

The dozens of books published about Iraq fall into roughly two categories: explanations for why the disaster has occurred, and self-justifications by the people involved in crafting the disaster. This book fits squarely into the first category, but is notable for two reasons. First, the author is one of the few reporters who lived in Baghdad during the invasion, speaks Arabic, and was in daily contact with ordinary Iraqis. Second, he appears to have had significant access to many of the hapless individuals responsible for rebuilding Iraq, who are now mostly sitting in cool offices in America, working on books explaining why they acted as they did.

As an explanation for why Iraq has gone wrong, Imperial Life in the Emerald City puts forth reasons that most people have already heard. The army should never have been dissolved, since many of the dissatisfied troops promptly became militants. There should have been planned protection for the city after the invasion; instead, most of the city was looted, including many vital ministries. If the book only contained these insights, it would not probably be worth reading. Where Chandrasekaran excels, however, is in painting a picture of life inside the so-called "Green Zone," where American decisions were made behind fortifications and soldiers, with only the rarest exposure to the chaos prevailing in the city itself. People of any political persuasion will be shocked at how things were run after military operations were finished.

Time after time, people were put in charge of ministries with no experience, simply because they were Republican Party loyalists. Many of these people, despite their frequent lack of qualifications, worked tirelessly to get the country in order with thoroughly inadequate resources. Everywhere, there are stories of people doing their best under impossible circumstances. Chandrasekaran tells the story of Don North, a veteran television producer contracted to run the Iraqi Media Network. The Network received almost no funding but North still manages to make it work, and get some real news on the air. Soon enough, however, the powers that be -- in a move that proves typical -- insist that the station essentially play Western propaganda instead of actual news. They aired things like Towards Freedom, a show containing only "optimistic sound bites from American and British government officials." Soon enough, Iraqis stopped watching the channel, and instead received their news from the al-Jazeera, where the coverage was sure to be less than friendly to the occupation.

Chandrasekaran is utterly convincing in showing how decisions were made inside the safe bubble of the Green Zone, independent of the realities on the ground, and with an almost total lack of input from the Iraqi people who were supposed to benefit. Several administrators, for example, insisted of rapid free-market reforms, even when it was clear that this would create more enemies than friends. Resources were wasted aiming for unrealistic targets (a fully functioning electronic stock exchange, for example) when a walk around the city would have made it clear that what people needed was water, medicine, and electricity.

There is an obvious criticism of this book, and that is that it is easy to see mistakes after they have happened. We know now that disbanding the army created insurgents, but have no idea what the consequences of doing something else might have been. At times, in fact, Chandrasekaran does not seem to realize that he is suggesting two contradictory courses of action. He criticizes L. Paul Bremer (who has, incidentally, written his own book) for being autocratic with the Governing Council, and thereby causing a serious (and disastrous) fallout with the Grand Ayatollah Al-Sistani, a major religious figure; later, he indicates that Bremer made a mistake by giving the Shiites too much leeway in selecting members for the council. How exactly was the guy supposed to act?

When I finished the book, in fact, there were questions like that one ringing through my head instead of any real solutions. What exactly were these Americans supposed to do? It would have helped if there had been less cronyism, and more troops, and more interaction with Iraqis, of course, but for the most part it is totally unclear how this occupation could have been an unalloyed success. To Chandrasekaran's credit, he never makes it seem like there were easy answers; he is excellent at conveying what a dizzying range of options there were for every immense problem, each with potential pitfalls. Even in the best of worlds, there would have been huge losses, and huge mistakes made -- which is why, I thought as I turned the last page, one should never take over a country unless it is absolutely necessary. Whether Iraq was necessary is something each reader will have to decide independently.