NEW YORK, April 8, 2007
Insider: Missteps Soured Iraqis on U.S.
Iraq's Former Finance Minister Details "Shocking" U.S. Mismanagment Of Iraq In New Book
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Former Treasury Secretary John Snow, right, meets with former Iraqi Finance Minister Dr. Ali Allawi, second right, along with Treasury Deputy Secretary Robert Kimmitt, left, and Iraqi Central Bank Governor Dr. Sinan al-Shabib, second left, in Washington, Tuesday, April 25, 2006. (AP)
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Photo Essay Anniversary Protests Demonstrations around the world as the war in Iraq enters its fifth year.
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"The corroded and corrupt state of Saddam was replaced by the corroded, inefficient, incompetent and corrupt state of the new order," Ali A. Allawi concludes in "The Occupation of Iraq," newly published by Yale University Press.
Allawi writes with authority as a member of that "new order," having served as Iraq's trade, defense and finance minister at various times since 2003. As a former academic, at Oxford University before the U.S.-British invasion of Iraq, he also writes with unusual detachment.
The U.S.- and British-educated engineer and financier is the first senior Iraqi official to look back at book length on his country's four-year ordeal. It's an unsparing look at failures both American and Iraqi, an account in which the word "ignorance" crops up repeatedly.
First came the "monumental ignorance" of those in Washington pushing for war in 2002 without "the faintest idea" of Iraq's realities. "More perceptive people knew instinctively that the invasion of Iraq would open up the great fissures in Iraqi society," he writes.
What followed was the "rank amateurism and swaggering arrogance" of the occupation, under L. Paul Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), which took big steps with little consultation with Iraqis, steps Allawi and many others see as blunders:
In his 2006 memoir of the occupation, Bremer wrote that senior U.S. generals wanted to recall elements of the old Iraqi army in 2003, but were rebuffed by the Bush administration. Bremer complained generally that his authority was undermined by Washington's "micromanagement."
Although Allawi, a cousin of Ayad Allawi, Iraq's prime minister in 2004, is a member of a secularist Shiite Muslim political grouping, his well-researched book betrays little partisanship.
On U.S. reconstruction failures — in electricity, health care and other areas documented by Washington's own auditors — Allawi writes that the Americans' "insipid retelling of 'success' stories" merely hid "the huge black hole that lay underneath."
For their part, U.S. officials have often largely blamed Iraq's explosive violence for the failures of reconstruction and poor governance.
The author has been instrumental since 2005 in publicizing extensive corruption within Iraq's "new order," including an $800-million Defense Ministry scandal. Under Saddam, he writes, the secret police kept would-be plunderers in check better than the U.S. occupiers have done.
As 2007 began, Allawi concludes, "America's only allies in Iraq were those who sought to manipulate the great power to their narrow advantage. It might have been otherwise."
© MMVII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie."
Posted by krg12171936 at 06:48 AM : Apr 09, 2007
ROFLMAO You've got to be kidding? ROFLAMO Talk about being in complete denial AND a southern Fascist on top of that! You wouldn't admit who's really to blame here if your Swastika burnt a hole in your pocket now would you? LMAO Sieg Heil and have a great day!
I highly doubt that the CIA and the militant white house did not know what they were doing. The wanted to keep the US troops there and for that reason they needed chaos in the country so that they can "maintain peace"
Equal access to gulf oil has been planned for a long time now by the CIA, that's why the US is a such a big supporter of Israel. The white house wants US presence in the middle east and country by country it will invade and take down the governments. Where ever there is a resource, violence and chaos will break out. Watch and see.
Actually, that's beginning to sound better and better.
You've just put out of work all of your law enforcement and government support, and given them nothing to do but rebel. You've kicked out all of the good organizational types that keep the government functioning, and you've done some serious damage to the economy to put everyone else out of work too! It's a recipe for anarchy, chaos and civil war, any fool could see that.
Then, when this doesn't work, you figure that you just need to keep doing it the same way until it works! Ever hear the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result!
You've just put out of work all of your law enforcement and government support, and given them nothing to do but rebel. You've kicked out all of the good organizational types that keep the government functioning, and you've done some serious damage to the economy to put everyone else out of work too! It's a recipe for anarchy, chaos and civil war, any fool could see that.
How much more arrogance, incompetence and dishonesty must we suffer under Bu$h?
How many more failed Bu$h plans must we pay for?
How many more lives must we sacrifice how much more money must we waste for this boondogle of a war?
- by susanhelit April 9, 2007 3:34 AM EDT
- Unsurprisingly - more stupid blind political games, following ideology even if it doesn't reflect reality, once again costs us.
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