In Imperial Life in the Emerald City, the Washington Post’s former Baghdad bureau chief draws back the curtain on those who attempted — with limited success at best — to remake Iraq in America’s image following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
For about 15 months beginning in April 2003, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) — a coalition in name only, because it was almost wholly American — served as Iraq’s government. It enacted laws, printed currency and collected taxes, all from behind the walls of a seven-square-mile compound nicknamed Emerald City, walls that kept them isolated from the very people they ostensibly served.
Rajiv Chandrasekaran, who spent two years in Iraq as a reporter, weaves a vivid tale of the stubborn, often misguided zeal that marked their rule during that crucial period. Although basic necessities like electricity, medicine and clean drinking water were in short supply throughout the country, US officials became fixated on largely irrelevant short-term goals like computerizing the stock exchange and instituting an anti-smoking campaign, Chandrasekaran writes.
The CPA enclave was a slice of homegrown suburbia on the banks of the Tigris, with staffers cut off from the wartime realities. They could lounge by the Olympic-size swimming pool, drink in one of a half-dozen bars or retire to their rooms and watch bootleg DVDs purchased at the Green Zone Bazaar, a line of shops exclusively for Americans’ use. Fare in the dining hall featured cheeseburgers and pork chops rather than local cuisine; everything, including drinking water, was shipped in from other countries.
Furtive sexual liaisons provided another popular pastime. A 10-to-1 ratio of men to women meant the latter could be quite selective.
CPA officials rarely left the compound, and those who did always had an armed escort, either soldiers or well-paid civilians. Chandrasekaran stunned one staffer when he told the man he lived in the “Red Zone,” traveled in Baghdad without a security detail and regularly visited Iraqis in their homes. “What’s it like out there?” the staffer asked.
Chandrasekaran shows how political credentials often trumped practical experience when it came to filling staff positions. Frederick Burkle Jr, a physician and decorated Naval Reserve officer, was initially tapped to rehabilitate Iraq’s devastated postwar health-care system. Holder of several advanced degrees from Ivy League universities, he was considered an expert in disaster relief, having been tasked with providing medical assistance to the Kurds during the first Persian Gulf War.
A week after Baghdad fell, Burkle was sacked, Chandrasekaran writes, because the White House wanted a “loyalist” in the job. His replacement, a social worker without a medical degree, had no experience in disaster-response matters but possessed solid-gold political connections — to John Engler, the former Republican governor of Michigan.
The book examines, in excruciating detail, the interagency bickering that hampered the mission. The CPA operated under the control of the US Defense Department, with Paul Bremer, the American viceroy, reporting directly to Donald Rumsfeld. The few staffers who came from the US State Department — including those possessing Arabic-language skills and significant experience in the Middle East — usually found themselves shunted to the side. Bremer seemed to surround himself with young, unseasoned advisers, Chandrasekaran observes. “Like the president, Bremer valued loyalty above all else.”
Chandrasekaran details the simmering tensions between the American military and CPA staffers. While many of the soldiers had served in hot spots like Kosovo and Haiti, the young administrators often considered them little more than drivers and bodyguards. Military personnel sometimes joked that CPA stood for “Can’t Produce Anything.”
Alex Dehgan, a burly biologist working as a State Department science fellow, emerges as one of the few heroes. Sent to Iraq to open a center where Iraqis who had worked on Saddam’s weapons programs could learn about new jobs, Dehgan encountered stiff opposition from other CPA staffers. Some complained he was treading on their turf. Against seemingly insurmountable odds, Dehgan scrounged up supplies, once trading a box of official Iraqi state silver flatware for a few coils of protective razor wire, and eventually opened the center near Baghdad University. It was one of the few success stories.
The book ends with a farewell barbecue a few weeks before the June 2004 handover of sovereignty to the Iraqis. American staffers attended — but not Iraqis. The Americans exchanged e-mail addresses over hot dogs and beer and planned for their future. Bremer mounted the stage. “We’ve made Iraq a better place,” he said, shedding a tear as everyone applauded.
Chandrasekaran has written a fascinating book, required reading for anyone who wants to know about that crucial first year of America’s rule in post-Saddam Iraq. While he pulls no punches, Imperial Life in the Emerald City is far more vital than the rash of “Bush Lied, People Died” tomes that soon will fill the bargain bins of the nation’s bookstores.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your