| IMPERIAL LIFE IN THE EMERALD CITY Inside Iraq's Green Zone Rajiv Chandrasekaran New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006 |
Rating: 5.0 High | |||
| ISBN-13 978-1-4000-4487-0 | ||||
| ISBN 1-4000-4487-1 | 320pp. | HC | $25.95 | |
The fog of war. Any conflict generates it, putting paid to plans and calling for constant improvisation. The conflict in Iraq after the downfall of Saddam Hussein is worse than most in this respect with its multiple ethnic and sectarian antipathies interacting and feeding off each other.
But there is another sort of fog peculiar to this war. That is the persistent self-deception engendered by the Republican ideologues in the U.S. government who perpetrated this war. In fairness, it must be said that their motives for the most part were not venal; they genuinely wished to improve living conditions in Iraq and security in America. But in seeking those worthy goals, they consistently chose the wrong path and ended up making the situation much worse. From the willful dismissal of any planning activity not done in the Pentagon, to the deliberate distortion of intelligence to bolster the case for invading Iraq, to the establishment of a cloistered Green Zone for the occupation leadership, the entire campaign has been conducted badly.
Rajiv Chandresekaran, staff reporter for the Washington Post, has done an admirable job of piercing both kinds of fog. His book, based on previous work for the Post and on close to a hundred more interviews, sheds a unique and galling light on the mistakes and pretenses of that ongoing debacle. His account takes us inside the deliberations of the Department of Defense, the Coalition Provisional Authority, and the Iraqi Governing Council. He also takes us along with a platoon of soldiers from the Army's First Cavalry Division as they ride into an ambush in Baghdad's Sadr City on 4 April 2004.
In addition to an iron grip on his facts, he displays a screenwriter's ear for dialog and a novelist's eye for telling details: the fleeting expression on a face, the trace of dust drifting into a room. He writes well and smoothly, and the result is a tale that is entertaining as well as illuminating. Another thing that impressed me is that, although he describes some gruesome scenes and many outrageously misguided actions, his tone never descends into melodrama or outrage. It is a compelling combination, and it sets this book apart from the spate of analyses of what went wrong in Iraq. I read it in one sitting, and I give it my highest recommendation.
The audience at the CPA reunion quieted as Bush's image filled the screen in front of them. America, he said, had made "significant progress in Iraq." "Our mission in Iraq is clear," he said. "We're hunting down the terrorists. We're helping Iraqis build a free nation that is an ally in the war on terror. We're advancing freedom in the broader Middle East. We are removing a source of violence and instability, and laying the foundation of peace for our children and our grandchildren." He conceded no errors. – Page 298 |
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