Since I lived for a year in Baghdad's Green Zone, I felt it was necessary for me to read what happened before I got there, under L. Paul Bremer, bureaucrat extraordinaire. That is why I recently found myself reading Imperial Life in the Emerald City, by Rajiv Chandrasekaran.

To say that the Bush Administration and its chosen Iraq occupation overlords made poor choices during and immediately after the invasion of that country would be an understatement so vast that I have no words to describe how big an understatement I would be making. Reading Imperial Life in the Emerald City reinforced for me many of the reasons why I heard the impact of so many mortars during my 2005-2006 sojourn to Iraq's largest city and at the time one of the most violent if not the most violent city in the world.

I met Rajiv Chandrasekaran in Baghdad in 2006, when I credentialed him for access to military bases. The man was humble, unassuming and patient with the bureaucratic process he endured, which is much more than I can say for Geraldo Rivera, who had sycophants hanging all over him and required that we open for a special session to credential him. In any case, the book itself is superly written in a professional tone.

The damning indictments of cronyism and poor decision making due to a complete lack of understanding of the culture and history of Iraq are presented artfully, without the forced overtones of sarcasm that would have appeared had I written Imperial Life in the Emerald City.

From the story of the Iraqi expatriatate who returns post invasion to open a five-star pizza shop only to find his American customers cannot leave their fortified enclave to the tale of the minor minister who is assasinated for trying to help his country without being politically involved, to the detailed descriptions of the "little America" inside a several square mile compound in downtown Baghdad, this book is well worth reading.

I do not know if L. Paul Bremer has yet publicly admitted how arrogant and stupid many of the decisions made in that first year of occupation were, but he knows it in his heart. If he doesn't that would mean the man has no heart.

Having served in Iraq, and having been to a few locales outside the "Emerald Palace" I called the Green Zone, I still hold pain in my heart for the people I met and for their suffering. Things may be turning around now in that country. But in reading Imperial Life in the Emerald City, it becomes clear that much of the violence that wracked the country and the city of Baghdad could have been avoided if things had been done differently in the beginning. We'll never know how many died because of bad decision making, but it is clear that the numbers are in the tens of thousands and possibly much higher.

If you've ever wondered what was really going on in those first days of the occupation, you owe it to yourself to read this book. Highly recommended.

This is an excellent book that stands out among the host of books that have been written about the Iraq war. The thing that makes it stand out is that it reads like a novel. A scary novel of course. It details the fiasco that has unfolded in Iraq due to poor planning, poor leadership, and the desire to reward loyalty over competency.

I agree with some of the reviewers below who stated that this is a good introductory book. Its well written and very easy to read. That being said, it doesn't contain nearly the level of detail as other books, written by both "sides" (i.e., Bremer's memoir or Ferguson's No End in Sight).

There's not a whole lot of analysis and it seemed that this book focused a lot more on food platters and young staffers than the more substantive issues. I mean, yes, it would have been better to have a more experienced individual in charge of reopening the Baghdad Stock Exchange. That being said, the Stock Exchange was miniscule in importance compared to the more important issues the lack of troops and the disbanding of the Iraqi army, which, in my opinion, needed more treatment.

I think it would be a mistake for us to view the problems we face as a result of the selection of young, inexperienced staffers, and to me, the book gives off that strong impression. The problems are (first) a result of not enough troops on the ground after the initial military victory (Rumsfeld) and (second) the failure to recall at least some of the Iraqi military (Jerry Bremer and Walt Slocombe). These were simply bad decisions made by 3 very experienced officials, with significant experience in both Republican and Democratic administrations.

If people were not dying in Iraqi, the follies displayed in this book could be easily dismissed as a bad joke, just more of the same old well-known superpower hubris. Or as John Le Carre put it so elegantly in the cover notes: "a Black Comedy, set in the graveyard of the neoconservatives dream."

Since it is not merely a case of hubris, all true American patriots must now be worried about the health and continued life of the American Empire. As a "closeted ex-Republican," the incompetence showcased in this book makes even my stomach turn. It is not just the incompetence; which is staggering, that bothers me, but that this book finally confirms what I already knew: that from the President on down, there is no adult supervision in an administration that sorely needs it.

Since I have worked with some of them, I have no doubt that Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith, Condy Rice, Donald Rumsfeld and even Dick Chaney are competent, as individuals, and when they are operating under suitable adult supervision; however, this book points to something much larger than mere hubris, or even mere incompetence, with which we are already familiar through the likes of no WMDs, Katrina, Abu Ghraib, the sub-prime lending melt-down, no follow-up plan after the invasion, the healthcare gift to the drug and insurance companies, and the "mission accomplished" grandstanding. What the details of this book suggest is that a lot more than mere world-class incompetence and hubris are "in play": Here is a witches brew of incompetence, cultural insensitivity, ideological arrogance, and a kind of "classism" that parallels and mimics exactly the image that Saddam Hussein himself projected while he was in power. Go figure?

For those of us who did not know it, the "Green Zone," is situated in one of Saddam Hussein's "Republican Palaces," outfitted with all of the opulence of a petty Third World Potentate, but with an American twist: swimming pools, food, water, fruit loops and pork hot dogs (for the Moslem servants to handle) air-lifted in daily, seven sports bars with wide-screen TVs, with most of the soldiers strutting around with 9mm Berettas strapped to their waists. The motto of this "Texas Enclave in the Desert," says it all: "Keep the air in the bubble."

This "Little Texas on the Tigris," is not just obscene, it is an utter embarrassment to a self-confident and mature democracy. It alone goes a long way towards defeating the very purpose of our being there: to bring to the Iraqi people a new sense of what a true democracy means and can be.

With the kind of behavior chronicled in this book, we Americans should not be surprised that ordinary Iraqis would want us out of there in the worse kind of way. But our culturally insensitive behavior is just the icing on the cake of this monumental tragedy for them. Their main reason for wanting us out is that after five years and over 100, 000 Iraqi deaths, even the normal amenities of clean water and sewage, electrical power, and security are still not up to the level of the Saddam Hussein era. How shameful is that? What a nightmare for both Iraq and America.

Because it is just a computer dump of a reporter's logbook, obviously put together quickly, without any in-depth analysis, I give the book four stars.

This is a great book. I worked on the movie version coming out soon, so wanted to read the book. It is good among other life changing books like Fast Food Nation.

This book was on the NY Best Seller list for a while and I finally got around to buying it after the price had gone down. This is a non-fictional account of the beginning of the Iraq diplomacy by the US and the operations that ran inside the walls of the "little america" called the Green Zone.

It accounts of the living conditions, the attitudes, the progress of the consistent and willful, while also documenting the failings of many due to ineptitude of accepting middle eastern culture, lack of knowledge and common sense. Basically trying to bulldoze Iraq with Bush administration's vision and not the people of Iraq's vision.

It is quite interesting who did what and how they did it and why some were somewhat successful and why many failed to bring any stability to Iraq. Also the conditions of the living quarters of our soldiers, contractors and foreign soldiers, the condition of food, constant departmental conflicts and lack of knowledge, planning and funding seems to have set up everyone who has gone to Iraq in the first 3 years of the occupancy to fail. The feeling I got when finishing up the book was that the US government did everything to try to make the reconstruction of Iraq a miserable failure. However depressing, the book is a great first hand account of life in the Green Zone.

Many books have been written about the fiasco of Iraq; this one has the clarity and prose that makes it stand out from most of the others. It's well organized, comprehensibly written and states it's point of view in an extremely easy to read and understandable manner. If you are interested in delving into much of "what went wrong" in Iraq, after the initial ill-advised "war", this is the book for you.

It is probably safe to say that your opinion of Imperial Life in the Emerald City will be determined to a large extent by how many other books covering the Iraq war you've read. If this is one of the first books on the subject that you happen to pick up, you will most likely be happy with the book. However, if you've read quite a few books on the war, you'll find that this book adds very little to what you've already learned. Put simply, this book is a very small piece of the puzzle if understanding Iraq is your goal.

It's not that Chandrasekaran has written a bad book in any sense of the word, but if you've read books by Ricks, Packer, Allawi, Feldman, Diamond (just to name a few of the obvious examples) you'll realize that you've learned very little new information from this book. When it comes to the time period and subject being covered, the Feldman and Diamond books are much more useful. The only way to judge Chandrasekaran's book as a success is if the goal was to write an easy to read narrative popular history that pieces together information in somewhat of a random way to appeal to those not necessarily well-versed in current events or Iraqi history. If you compare this book to another Iraq book written by a journalist, The Assassins' Gate by George Packer is much, much more in-depth and informative. Chandrasekaran's book quickly skims over a lot of subject matter without providing any real analysis at all, while Packer's book on the other hand, comes across as being written by a Middle Eastern specialist with years of study under his belt.

The book is well-written and easy to read. For that, the author should be aplauded. Anything that sparks the public's interest in learning more about Iraq (an important goal) is good in and of itself, and I believe this book can be safely placed in that category. The book covers the relatively short life-span of the American occupation forces, which no doubt left an indelible mark on Iraq and its future. The book also falls into the category of not adding much to the existing body of work. Someone well-read in Iraqi issues will find very little in the way of new information, while those who aren't won't find enought to really have a sufficient grasp of the situation, especially this many years into the war. There is no single and definitive book to read in order to really understand Iraq despite the multitude of reviews claiming otherwise. If there was a list of candidates for said book however, Imperial Life in the Emerald City would be somewhere near the bottom.

Rajiv Chandrasekaran's IMPERIAL LIFE IN THE EMERALD CITY: INSIDE IRAQ'S GREEN ZONE is an important piece of investigative journalism; indeed, it should be required reading for every politico on Capitol Hill. IMPERIAL LIFE IN THE EMERALD CITY is an account of what went wrong in Iraq - politically and practically speaking - in the aftermath of the American military invasion. It's a story of broken promises and missed opportunities, nepotism and cronyism, bureaucracy and incompetence. The Green Zone, much like the Bush administration's vision of a post-war Iraq, is a fantasyland, a veritable Oz, subject not to the realities of the times but only to the whims of its creators. Day-to-day life in Iraq's Green Zone, then, is emblematic of our failure in Iraq.

But let's start at the beginning. After the invasion of Iraq, American forces set up shop in the Green Zone, a 4-square-mile gated area of villas and palaces in central Baghdad which had previously been occupied by select government officials, ministries, and Saddam Hussein and his family. From here the so-called "coalition of the willing" (read: America) tried to rebuild and restructure Iraq via a transitional government called the Coalitional Provisional Authority (CPA), which was formed on April 21, 2003 and disbanded on June 28, 2004. By chronicling the CPA's exploits in the Green Zone, Chandrasekaran explains how our utter lack of post-war planning stretched a war that was supposed to last "weeks rather than months" into an occupation that recently passed the five-year mark.

The CPA was doomed from the start. Instead of sending out best and brightest minds to help the Iraqis build a democracy in their newly-liberated country, the Bush administration vetted recruits for loyalty and partisanship. Rather than cooperating with the Iraqi people, CPA eggheads tried to foist changes upon them - and radical changes, at that (e.g., a shift from a socialist to capitalist economy...in a period of months, not years). Programs were underfunded, or not funded at all. Sectarian differences were stressed and reinforced by clueless newbies, leading to a highly fractured and contentious interim government. Meanwhile, de-Ba'athification purged the Iraqi government of all experienced politicians.

Bush loyalists, charged with recreating Iraq in America's image, had little or no knowledge of Iraqi culture and society - an oversight that was not corrected once CPA employees arrived in Iraq, as they were rarely allowed to leave the Green Zone and experience Iraq first-hand. Instead, they remained sequestered in the Green Zone, which had been remade into a "little America", a "bubble", an "American subdivision". Though many of the cafeteria workers in the Green Zone were Muslims, CPA employees expected them to serve pork dishes with a smile. (Even this secular atheist is aghast at the religious and cultural insensitivity!) Whereas the economy of Iraq could have benefited by providing for the CPA's needs in the Green Zone, much of the work was outsourced to American companies, and most of the supplies were imported. All the while, essential services (for the Iraqis, that is) suffered; water, electricity, food, jobs - to date, Saddam has proven more able to provide the necessities for the Iraqi people than have the occupying American forces. This is perhaps why we have lost their hearts and minds - and why America is still engaged in warfare with militia groups five years after the invasion.

Watching the Senate Armed Services hearings on Iraq on the teevee today, it's striking how quickly the Democrats and Republicans alike are to blame our current problems on the Iraqis themselves. It's almost like listening to a spousal abuser blame his wife for her beatings. We invaded Iraq - and then we failed to help them rebuild a country, a government, that was already in rough shape to begin with; one that we further decimated by waging war upon it. Afterwards, we tried to ram our version of a democratic, free society down their throats, instead of working hand-in-hand with the Iraqi citizens to build a viable and stable country. The problems that we face today are our own, as is illustrated in IMPERIAL LIFE IN THE EMERALD CITY.

Whether you believe that the war in Iraq was a justified pre-emptive strike or an impeachable offense, there is no denying that America has a responsibility to the people of Iraq. By showing us the many ways in which we have failed to fulfill these obligations, Rajiv Chandrasekaran also gives us an important roadmap for change and success.

Through a series of frankly detailed and highly readable sketches, Rajiv Chandrasekaran walks readers through the first years of the U.S. occupation and how the activities of the Coalition Provisional Authority sank chances for peace and democracy in Iraq. While not outrageously polemic, many of the reports *are* jaw-dropping, and readers are likely to reach their own conclusion that a genuinely flawed set of personal, economic and political priorities (driven by the 2004 U.S. elections and conservative ideology) gave rise to today's bloody insurgency. Well-balanced with interviews with important decision makers, analysis of critical policy decisions, location and key event details, money trails, eye-witness accounts and more. Highly recommended.

Through a series of frankly detailed and highly readable sketches, Rajiv Chandrasekaran walks readers through the first years of the U.S. occupation and how the activities of the Coalition Provisional Authority sank chances for peace and democracy in Iraq. While not a polemic, many of the reports *are* jaw-dropping, and readers are likely to reach their own conclusion that a genuinely flawed set of personal, economic and political priorities (driven by the 2004 U.S. elections and conservative ideology) gave rise to today's bloody insurgency. Well-balanced with interviews with important decision makers, analysis of critical policy decisions, location and key event details, money trails, eye-witness accounts and more. Highly recommended.

Winston Churchill once said, Americans will always do the right thing after they've exhausted every other option. Welcome to Iraq. Iraqi hospitals run on 3 hours of electricity at a time, have no clean water, no medicines, what is the American solution? Institute a no-smoking policy for Iraqis. Need qualified Americans to help rebuild Iraq? Forget experience or qualifications, can you answer these 2 questions: are you for or against Roe vs Wade? did you vote for George W Bush? If you can say aye to both questions, you got a job! In a stunning, frustrating and revealing look at this disaster of epic proportions of a foreign policy this book will let you know what's really going on in Iraq. It's not a pretty picture.

Rajiv Chandrasekaran was the bureau chief for the Washington Post in Baghdad during the early years of the American occupation of Iraq. As an American reporter, he had access to many Americans in the "green zone" in Baghdad and has compiled a remarkable account of the both the policy level failures and the personal foibles of the occupation team.

Chandrasekaran's book, "Imperial Life in the Emerald City," is divided into two broad sections:

"Part One - Building the Bubble"
"Part Two - Shattered Dreams"


In the first section, the author documents how the leadership team was recruited and organized. Staffers were chosen for their political allegiances. For example, John Agresto was the president of a small college in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Agresto had connections to the wife of Dick Cheney and the wife of Donald Rumsfeld. In spite of his lack of experience or expertise in post-war reconstruction or the Middle East, Agresto was appointed to revamp the Iraqi higher education system. Chandrasekaran describes how Agresto seems to have approached his task with genuine interest and goodwill, but was hampered by his lack of experience and lack of real funding or support. Agresto himself finally concludes "I am a neoconservative who has been mugged by reality."

Chandrasekaran documents another example of well-meaning incompetence in an appointee. Jay Hallen was a 24-year-old with a job in a real-estate firm in the US. Hallen had sent a resume to the White House had met the right people. Hallen himself seems to have been quite surprised to be sent to Iraq and placed in charge of rebuilding the Iraqi stock exchange. Of course, with no experience in finance, Hallen fails miserably and finally leaves the country. I was impressed with Chandrasekaran's fairness in that the reader is left with a deeper understanding of why the American plans failed, but also a little sympathy for the Americans who seemed to really intend to do good.

Staffers were also pushed out because they knew too much and lacked connections to the neocons. For example, Tom Warrick from the State Department was selected to serve in Iraq because of his deep knowledge of Iraq and his familiarity with State Department documents and research. Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney specifically and actively blocked Warrick's appointment because of their fears that Warrick already knew too much about Ahmad Chalabi, an Iraqi much favored by the neocons but lacking support with Iraqi locals.

In a mild criticism of Chandrasekaran's research, I would like to have seen more information about the role of the Office of Special Plans in suppressing information about Iraq and manipulation the appointment process. In defense of the author, though, he does focus more on what was occurring in Iraq instead of the "behind the scenes" chicanery in Washington.

In the section titled "Shattered Dreams," Chandrasekaran documents the logical outcome of such initial hubris and incompetence.

In summary, with the American military still in Iraq, "Imperial Life in the Emerald City" is an interesting document to help us understand how the US government could have handled the occupation so badly. This well-documented book is sad, informative, and very important.

Chandrasekaran documents how political cronyism, corruption, ignorance, fear of talent, massive arrogance, lack of accountability, and isolation behind the fortifications of the Green Zone created a cacoon that doomed American effectiveness. It did not have to be that way. He names good folks who were dismissed or ignored for trying to understand Iraqis or to accommodate to Iraqi culture. He is unsparing in his criticism of Paul Bremer and his bloated staff for their high handed tactics and blindness to the real needs of their charges. Emerald City is a story told with slightly different villains than in the other great books published around the same time (eg Assassin's Gate, Hubris, Fiasco, etc.), but its overall picture is the same: greater attention to orders from Washington than circumstances on the ground set us on the wrong course and has extracted a price we will pay forward. One of the best features of the book is the description of social life in the Green Zone that opens the book and leads several chapters. Two years later, when I was there, it the same air of unreality, invulnerability, and hormonal excess still pervaded the American presence, though, informed by rocketry and chaos outside the gates, to a lesser extent.

The book is put together very well and explains what the problems are in Iraq and how the President and his cronies care more of what type of republican you are then what your qualities are.... the best was when he talked about the dining facility and he says it was meant for Americans specifically ones south of the mason-dixon line..... Its a quick read also and a good book just to learn whats going on over there.

Chandrasekaran's writing and reporting are top-notch within this volume, a book which goes a long way in explaining the problems encountered during the reconstruction of Iraq. The author is even-handed in his accounting, not necessarily pointing the finger at anyone, but certainly pulling no punches. If there is one person who should be closely scrutinized, it would be the combat-boot-wearing, Armani-suited Paul Bremer, whose ego, hubris, and unquestioning decision-making could allow for no suggestions by State Department officials or native Iraqis. His decision upon arriving in Iraq to "deBaathify" leadership positions and to dismantle the Iraqi army shall go down as horrible mistakes. But those are just the most dramatic mistakes in a long list of errors committed by the provisional authority. This account succeeds on several fronts: good sources, honest quotes, and non-judgmental imparting of facts.

i'm a current events junkie but there were things in here that shocked even me. should be required reading. how did this happen? bush should be ashamed, as should bremer, rumsfeld and all the neocons. oh yeah, and cheney is a monster

I have three reservations with the book. The first issue is an issue of journalistic ethics and has to do with the ambiguous way the author treats his sources, by first making a fool of them and then relying on their wisdom to build his narrative.

The pattern goes like this. Chandrasekaran usually introduces his characters by pointing how little experience they had in post-conflict reconstruction or in working in the Middle East, emphasizing that they usually got the job because of their loyalty to the Republican party, their adherence to the neoconservative agenda, or just plain luck. He then follows them through their various reform projects in the occupied country, often adopting their viewpoint and sympathizing with their ordeal. Then by way of conclusion, he allows them to reflect on their experience and draw the lessons after the facts, again adopting their perspective and often quoting their own words.

Their assessment of the occupation's overall failure is in most cases lucid and accurate: "We should have been less ambitious. Our goal should have been to build a free, safe and prosperous Iraq--with the emphasis on safe." "We were so busy trying to build a Jeffersonian democracy and a capitalist economy that we neglected the big picture." "We felt like we were under siege. You can't run a country like that." "The key was not for us to be more involved, but for us to be less involved."

The final impression the reader gets is that most characters were decent fellows trying to do their best on an impossible mission, and that more seasoned experts would have made more or less the same mistakes. But then what was the point of making fun of their inexperience and lack of proper credentials? Why first present them to the reader as an incompetent lot, and then draw on their expertise to assess the results of U.S. rule? The author's reliance on sources who trusted him with their time and knowledge would have required more consideration for the individuals who were part of the broad endeavor of administering Iraq in the interim period, however flawed and doomed to failure their mission was.

The second reservation I have with the book is about economics. Chandrasekaran considers that the occupation's management of post-war Iraq was part of a neoconservative experiment, an attempt to remodel Iraq into a perfect market economy and to create a capitalist utopia. He describes Paul Bremer and his economic aide, Peter McPherson, as neoliberal ideologues aggressively promoting free market reforms in a highly dysfunctional economy, thereby aggravating mismanagement and chaos.

There is no doubt that some of the proposed reforms, like writing a new copyright law or lifting all import duties, were ill-conceived, unnecessary, or even harmful. But the thrust of it made good economic sense, even considering the constraints in which the provisional authority operated. Setting the exchange rate right, cutting production subsidies, reestablishing hard budget constraints, settling debts between state-owned enterprises, and turning their management around with a view to full privatization: these are textbook solutions to manage a transition, and they are backed by sound economic rationale, even though the security situation and social chaos soon made their implementation next to impossible.

They would have stood more chance had they been part of a transition blueprint drafted by international agencies and implemented by a legitimate provisional authority composed of Iraqi nationals and UN officials. The mistake was the way Americans tried to impose market reforms without putting Iraqis in charge, not the reforms themselves.

The last concern I have with the book is what I would call the "Black Hawk Down syndrome": the tendency to generalize Iraq's fiasco and to consider that all post-conflict operations are generally doomed to failure. Remember that the shooting down of a single Black Hawk chopper by Somalian militia in 1993 created a temporary allergy to all international military interventions and led the international community to stand aside when the Rwandan genocide unfolded. Although Chandrasekaran doesn't draw such broad conclusions, he may reinforce similar sentiments among readers from both sides of the political spectrum: the left denouncing imperial hubris and cultural blindness, and the right castigating the futility of government trying to do everything.

But it can be argued that the world needs more, not less, military interventions, albeit of a legitimate kind, and that more resources need to be invested in post-conflict reconstruction and nation building. This is the reason why it is important to understand the reasons of Iraq's calamity. Making cheap shots at political hacks and grossly incompetent young men makes good journalism, but leaves open the task of drawing meaningful conclusions for the future.

I fail to see why this book was nominated for various awards. It is good reporting - no more.
It reads like a series of magazine articles put together in a book.
The story itself is the funniest thing I have read for ages.There's a laugh on every page.
The CPA and Bremer are just bozos , and even the dogs in the street knew that.
Americans in particular should read this and see why they are reviled in the Middle East.
The whole attitude comes across as " we occupied your country and we're doing you a favour".
The Yanks are blinkered, unrealistic, unaware of the country they find themselves in and
grossly overpaid to do jobs nobody wants done , like writing a new copyright law.
Just what you need in the middle of an unacknowledged civil war
And today (1.2.2008) there were 2 more bombs in Ghazil Market which killed 64.
Five years now and its not improving in spite of what the administration wants you to believe..
This book will tell you why it's not improving .Pig-headed Yanks and their "Iraq project" .

The book is helpful for understanding why Iraq is a disaster. However, you can also wait for the movie version, which could be made as a comedy. I was surprised that Charlie Wilson's War was made into a comedy (though the book has funny moment). Guess funding the moujahadeen is funny, as long as it is in the past. In a similar vein, this book depicts the ancient history of 2003-2004 (and has some very funny moments). Maybe in retrospect the Iraq war can also be depicted as "funny". Haha!

A informative, objective look at why it all went wrong. Both funny and sad (often at the same time), this book could be a business school case study on what happens when complex jobs are handed to people based on ("Is he one of us") political cronyism. The author deserves credit for also introducing us to a few who managed to overcome the bureaucratic bumbling of the CPA and actually make a difference. Most everyone will have a much clearer picture of why, even years later, so little progress has been made.

I usually don't read non-fiction, but this book is like a good novel -- never boring, always fascinating. I also liked the author's fairness toward the hapless people who had grand all-American free-market, democracy-first plans for Iraq. Being a natural-born left-winger, I gradually changed my attitude toward the neoconservatives on the far right while reading Imperial City ... they aren't evil people, just blind. In fact, they had good intentions, were earnest in their good will toward the Iraqi people -- But it was the results of their intentions, which is always the case with the right, that were so terrible.

A informative, objective look at why it all went wrong. Both funny and sad (often at the same time), this book could be a business school case study on what happens when complex jobs are handed to people based on political connections, rather than qualifications. The author deserves credit for also introducing us to a few who managed to overcome the bureaucratic bumbling of the CPA and actually make a difference. Most everyone will have a much clearer picture of why, even years later, so little progress has been made.

If you want a front row seat to what's happening in Iraq, you should read this book. I, like most people, knew that the post-invasion period in Iraq was terribly mishandled by the America team, but I had no idea how bad it really was until reading this book. Ok, I know what you are probably thinking now: Yeah, yeah, another book about Bush's incompetance...yawn. But this book is better than that. "Imperial Life" gives you a first-hand glimpse into the human situation in Iraq. It puts you into the front seat of an American hummer under attack in Sadr City, it guides you through a tour of Iraq's failing power stations and it buckles you into the helicopter seat next to Paul Bremer as he flies out of Baghdad for the last time. This is an excellent book.

The author clearly outlines the little-known fights and struggles for power that happen behind the scenes between the federal departments. In this book, the Defense Department and the State Department had perhaps the most critical fight, which led to the direction and tactics of operations in and the reconstruction of Iraq. Most importantly, the author gives a wide view of the conflict and brings the reader to places the daily newspapers and wire services don't go.

"Imperial Life in the Emerald City" will undoubtedly go down in history as a classic of political journalism, war reporting, and political satire. It is extremely informative, fast-paced, darkly (and depressingly) humourous at some points, and well-written. I couldn't put this book down. The author does an admirable job at telling his story in a manner that is not bitter, though he and essentially anyone esle present in Iraq currently or during the period of time in which the book was set certainly has a right to be. Though some could probably make a case that the author is "biased," I don't believe that really had an impact on the book itself, for nearly everything he says is backed up by people with on-the-ground experience in Iraq or Washington, and these individuals come from a variety of political backgrounds (most were conservative). Perhaps the most compelling aspect of this book is that it leads one to believe that, had certain things been done differently in 2003-2004, the occupation could have indeed been a short one and the insurgency would have been far shorter and less effective. But re-writing history isn't what Chandrasekaran is concerned with. His goal is simply to inform. If you want to know why things turned out the way they have in Iraq, it is essential that you read this book.

This well written and constructed book is a fine journalistic account of the follies of Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), the administrative entity erected by the Bush administration to govern post-Saddam Iraq. That the Bush administration was surprised by the need to govern post-war Iraq typifies the flight from reality characteristic of this whole grotesque misadventure.
Chandrasekharan does a good job of describing the general incompetence of the CPA, its staffing with callow political appointees, the inability of many CPA personnel to overcome their ideological biases, the remarkable impoverishment of Iraqi society, and the shifting policies coming from Washington.
This is, however, a piece of journalism, albeit very good journalism. The author's reliance on vignettes doesn't really give a good idea of the scope of malfeasance of the American occupation.

About 90% of the info here I read in other books about the inbasion and occupation of Iraq.

We are living in a nation thats is being run by a bunch of Homer Simpsons.

Is it a good idea to explain in these reviews the general mood of the reviewer? In this case I think it is important. The book in question, Emerald City by Rajiv Chandrasekaran is one I have been aware of for some time. It sounded interesting, however I have generally tried to avoid current event books. Especially those about the Iraq War because what more can be said than this was a serious blunder by an incompetent administration. So why read more about it? In addition I had recently started several books that I just could not plow my way through. So I gave Emerald City a chance and I am very happy that I did. This is not only an important book, but a very entertaining book. It is a kind of nonfiction Catch-22 almost. The basic time period covered is the two years after the occupation began by the CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority). And yes, everything that could go wrong did go wrong because of an inflexible ideology and because Americans must be tone deaf to other cultures. The sorry fact I learned is that we may very well have achieved, at least in part, Bush's vision for Iraq. But we undermined the Iraqi's ability to implement their personal version of that vision. The author begins the book with a quote from T. E. Lawrence (and this I appreciated since I am a collector and reader of all things Lawrence): "Do not try to do too much with your own hands. Better the Arabs do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly. It is their war, and you are to help them, not to win it for them. Actually, also, under the very odd conditions of Arabia, your practical work will not be as good as, perhaps, you think it is. (T.E.L.August 20, 1917). I guess the question to ask is, Will we ever learn? Not unless we get a wide readership for this outstanding book of modern reporting and history. I highly recommend you make this part of your collection and pass it around among your friends

The blunt, direct and well-written Imperial Life In The Emerald City describes a small but crucial element in the Iraq occupation - the Coalition Provisional Authority, which was ostensibly tasked with reorganizing and rebuilding Iraq in the post-Saddam era. As painstakingly illustrated here, the CPA was a rat's nest of conflicting agendas, insufficient resources and wild improvisation. Perhaps the most painful elements in this book are the lamentable decisions taken by the Viceroy, L. Paul Bremer, an honorable man hopelessly out of his depth but astonishingly lacking the self-knowledge to realize it. Two of his fateful decisions - to disfranchise the entire Baath Party infrastructure, and to demobilize the entire Iraqi Army - sowed the seeds of the four-year insurgency that we are still dealing with today.

The book is peopled with dozens of honest and not-so-honest people who went to Iraq for their own motives and goals. Some were firmly convinced of their ideological qualifications for their task, frequently forgetting that ideology doesn't convey competence. Many CPA staffers, all the way up to Bremer's chief of staff and press secretary, simply used the CPA as a means of career advancement. Now, with the possibility that the military surge has finally begun to tamp down the violence that the CPA's decisions in large part led to (only time will tell if the insurgents have simply gone to ground until the American troops begin to pull out), the mistakes and incompetence of the CPA have largely been forgotten. This book redresses that ignorance, at least in small part.

It's disappointing to see right-wingers on this page insinuating that this book is a product of "the extreme-left" or those who 'want to see America fail.' Telling the objective truth from a position within the actual events is not an act of treason, except to those who uncritically accept right-wing propaganda and refuse to logically weigh arguments or the ample evidence before their eyes.

Many Americans seem to have forgotten the blunt statement by George Washington, whose "Avoid foreign entanglements" has never been more truthful than it is today. Washington and his colleagues did not intend America to become an empire. They saw first-hand what it meant to combat an empire. Unfortunately, 230 years later, the American political class on both sides of the aisle (except for the Progressive wing of the Democratic Party, and a few propeller-head Libertarians) has completely lost sight of America's national interest and its national origins. Drowned in a consolidated media and marketing empire, whose primary mission is to manufacture consent and thwart scrutiny, those who manage to read books like Imperial Life in the Emerald City are now the exception, not the rule.

This is an exceptional book about a military occupation. Having written one myself, I can tell you that it is one of the best books on a military occupation in print today. Rajiv Chandrasekaran, a former Baghdad bureau chief for the Washington Post, does an excellent job of being even-handed and fair in his coverage of American efforts to rebuild Iraq. What follows is an all too familiar story of Americans assuming that they knew better than they people of the country that they administered what was in the best interests of that nation.

What is particularly impressive about this book is that Chandrasekaran has drawn upon his contacts and developed the Iraqi side of the story. He shows that neo-cons in the Bush Administration really could have gotten most of what they wanted. The Iraqis really were glad to be rid of the Sadaam Hussein, but the American failure to deliver on their rhetoric turned them off. These failures were huge like the decline in basic services like health care, electricity, and water. The insistence of Coalition Provisional Authority to try and turn Iraq into a Jeffersonian democracy on a "Shake and Bake" basis that would look just like an ideal conservative version of the United States with a market driven economy and laissez-faire government and civil liberties for all dominated thinking in the Green Zone. Evidence indicates that the Iraqis wanted a system more like the New Deal where the state was much more active in providing services and, most of all, security. The people pushing the neo-con agenda were doing so with no regard or understanding of Iraqi history or culture. In fact, most spoke no Arabic at all. The main criteria for working in the occupation was not area expertise be it in economics, health care, or electrical engineering, but being a proven supporter of the Republican Party. Closed off in their little cocoon, many honestly had no idea of how unrealistic their efforts were.

Chandrasekaran focuses most of his attention on the civilians in the CPA. As a result, he does not really examine how ready the uniformed military was for the insurgency that followed the conventional phase of the war and the military basically gets something of a pass. For more on this part of the story, one should read Thomas E. Ricks' "Fiasco." Both Ricks and Chandrasekaran put a good deal of responsibility on the shoulders of the civilian leadership of the Department of Defense. Still, Chandrasekaran's gives both sides of the story even though he is clearly skeptical about the competence of many individuals. Jerry Bremer, the head of the CPA, gets his points, almost getting it right with the Kurds in the north, but only after giving the insurgency fuel with his ill-considered decision to abolish the Iraqi Army and ban all Baath party members from government service no matter how minimal their association.

This book is a delight to read. It is difficult to put down. Chandrasekaran writes in a smooth fashion, even if he has a tendency to be repetitive and redundant in his word selection. Parts are hilarious. Sadly, it is all true.

I consider it a mistake to have purchased this book. It was an impulse buy at the local bookstore as I thought it looked intriguing. What I hoped for as an insightful, detailed view of Iraq's Green Zone from an insider. But even before I saw terms like "coalition of the willing" I knew this book was coming from an unapologetically left view. I find this just as disappointing as a I would a far right view. But I guess something that is even-handed doesn't sell as many books. The fact is, as an educated American I'm not shocked-shocked by the incompetence of government bureaucracy and the arrogance of our culture. Have we ever seen our government perform in any other way? The fact that this author feels that he has to go so far to pander to the culture of dissatisfaction with his core audience is insulting. The author spends so much time expending his outrage over the arrogance of the US Government's Green Zone cafeterias serving pork products in the presence of muslim food servers than he forgets to include any outrage over muslim extremists who choose to indiscriminately detonate bombs which frequently kill scores of innocent Iraqi citizens. If you are a reader who feels the needs to have your outrage over the Iraq war affirmed, this book is for you. If you are a sensible person who is tired of propaganda on both sides of the aisle and who prefers to think for yourself, this book is not for you.

Without shouting or taking shots at any one group, this book impacted public opinion at the time the War was still supported by over 50% of the population. There is not clear example of how leadership fooled the American people and perhaps themselves. As with the Czar in the Great War, those in Iraq living in the Green Zone believed things were going well. Although too late to save his crown, at least the Czar went to the front and saw how badly the war was going. Bush was serving a plastic turkey to the troops.
Bob

Excellent and absorbing book written in a masterly style. The author's expertise in investigative reporting shows on every page. As one with access to the highest echelons of power at the CPA, the author has woven an interesting tapestry that throws a powerful search light on the utter chaos that ensued the US occupation of Iraq. The vignettes of CPA initiatives and personalities in each chapter lays bare the arrogance, hubris and opportunism portrayed by these modern day Don Quixotes. It is also tragic to note that some with true ideals and vision were drawn into this fiasco and had to leave, disillusioned by the impractical initiatives and the high handed approach of CPA commandants. One truly sympathizes with the fate of the trusting Iraqis who were expecting Jerry Bremer & co to deliver them from the tyranny of Saddam's rule and create a paradise for them in the middle of the Arab world, while the delusional CPA leadership was trying to remake Iraq in the image of America.

"The biggest mistake of the occupation was the occupation itself." Adel Abdel-Mahdi, p. 290

Big guns. Big money, Big freedom. We should be able to do anything we want, right? Of course, absolute loyalty to a loyal Republican commander-and-chief and an unquestioning, simplistic belief in Big Free Market is a prerequisite.

Why would we need to study our own historical relationship to the people we're convinced we've conquered? In such a poor, failed nation, any Joe or Jane off American streets should be able to "train" and "lead" them to glory.

The purpose of propaganda is to brainwash yourself, not the other guy. What the other guy thinks doesn't really matter. They're begging us to show them how to run their country:

--How to run an army (to fight--not us--but their own people, of course)
--How to run a police force (after we failed so thoroughly to police the looters).
--How to run their universities, stock market, factories, traffic etc. etc. etc. (Rajiv provides a few revealing snapshots of each of these ill-conceived and ill-executed efforts.)

They just need to be trained in "esprit de corps." That's the problem--not that we're occupying their country. And wars are about making money, so Yippee! We'll be able to rake it in as we go. Just think of all the experience [failing] we'll have on our resumes.

Of course none of us want to stay more than 3 months, 6 months tops. So we'll have to quickly force these wonderful beliefs, laws, and unrealistic programs on them, fast. But, with all that money, and the guns too of course, they'll accept anything we say. Those who don't like it are bad guys, related to 9/11 somehow.

The "deciders," and those Americans willing to follow, for work or ideological reasons, convinced themselves that you can:

1. THE OCCUPATION
--Believe the war is over, and it is!
--Believe you can rebuild a country while you're still (not) fighting a war!
--Believe you bring liberty and democracy wherever you go! (Americans are democracy incarnate, so where we rule, democracy simply is.)
--Believe you can decide when the occupation starts and when it's over! (The occupation started somewhere in the middle of Paul Bremer's rule and ended when he, in a secret ceremony, supposedly handed "sovereignty" to some oddment of Iraqis and left.)
--Believe being an occupier is a trivial detail, covered up by all our good intentions, trickle down dollars, and guns!

2. GOVERNMENT
--Believe without American micro-management the world is in danger of degenerating into chaos! Though we haven't a clue what's going on, and arrogantly try to transplant (force) the way we do things on others!
--Believe it's better if we don't have a clue what we're doing because this proves Government is Bad!
--Believe the purpose of Government is to fail so we can pillage.(Let the enemy pillage themselves. The Big Pillage is to pillage ourselves. More money and power! Heck of a job!)
--Believe the answer to all problems is to privatize. (But then who would we pillage?)

3. RELIGION
--Believe if religion is present in a culture, no democracy can possibly exist without the presence and control of Americans or our strictly-secular chosen ones! (See the mess caused by Bremer's treatment of al-Sistani--definitely a good guy. But Chalabi, however corrupt, hated by Iraqis, and self-serving, is a good guy!)

--Believe that whatever claims to be religious, is! (Sadr's Mahdi army has something to do with religion. Can't possibly have something to do with the young angry men expressing the rage of the country and the failure of our policy choices!)

"Freed from the grip of their dictator, the Iraqis believed that they should have been free to chart their own destiny, to select their own interim government, and to manage the reconstruction of their shattered nation. Their country wasn't Germany or Japan, a thoroughly defeated World War II aggressor to be ruled by the victorious. Iraqis needed help--good advice and ample resources--from a support corps of well-meaning foreigners, not a full-scale occupation with imperial Americans cloistered in a palace of the tyrant, eating bacon and drinking beer, surrounded by Gurkhas and blast walls." --Rajiv Chandrasekaran, p.290

If we don't own that the mistake is the occupation itself, we're doomed to keep making it long into the future.

The strength of this book is the insight that the author brings into the players involved in the occupation of Iraq and also the view we get of the cultural clash between the Americans and the Iraqis. It is not a comprehensive or scholarly view of what took place but rather a journalistic view of what went on at the ground level.

The irony here is that Saddam Hussein built a city within a city because he wanted to separate his doings from the rest of the Iraqi people; and then the Americans come, occupy Iraq and set themselves up under Jerry Bremer as the governing power (the CPA) centered in the very same place. The author describes how everything in the green zone, or emerald city, works whereas everything on the outside does not work. The hospital inside is immaculate and clean, while the hospital just on the outside, the Yarmouk Hospital, is filthy. Those inside could work in air conditioned buildings while those outside, including some brave people like struggling pizza entrepreneur Walid Khalid, suffered through 130 degree days.

One would think that anyone with competence would have approached the problem of occupying Iraq with a little humility. Saddam Hussein had driven the infrastructure into the ground because of the Iran-Iraq War, then the Gulf War and subsequent sanctions. Much was in disrepair and needed to be upgraded, most notably the electrical system and the power grid. The neocons in the Defense Department, however, thought that they knew everything, and along with Dick Cheney, made sure that the State Department, which unlike Defense had done some preparation for a post-war Iraq, was marginalized. As a result, there was very little expertise and planning that was brought to bear. Three disastrous things were allowed to happen. First, due to not enough troops and just pure negligence, the remaining part of the rickety infrastrusture was basically stripped bare by widespread looting. Secondly, Bremer set about the process of de-Baathification, which effectively removed the brains of the Iraqi government. Thirdly, as if to assure an insurgency, Bremer unilaterally dissolved the armed forces, throwing out on the order of hundreds of thousands of soldiers onto the streets without a paycheck.

Then, in addition to those three things, another prescription for failure was not to hire the most competent people, but instead to apply a test for political purity and to hire those who were above all loyal to the cause. Being a loyalist meant having an ideologically based agenda with little or no background, aspiring to work on the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign, and not listening to the Iraqis. Just a few of the notables include the twenty-four year old who was in charge of rebuilding Iraq's stock exchange, Bernie Kerik, and those in charge of economic development, Peter McPherson and Tom Foley. McPherson had big plans for privatization and foreign investment, no New Deal government inefficiencies for him. The problem was that the biggest problem according to the Iraqis was unemployment. McPherson set about trying to shrink governmental employment without having any tangible success in improving prospects in the private sector.

In this era of "managed news" (read propaganda) the TRUTH is most refreshing. The facts are presented in an organized manner that lead to the inescapable conclusion that the United States has been duped by the bush administration and the efforts to set up a system whereby integrity has been raped and then mangled.
Enough is enough.

I recommend this to my students. It is scarier than anything from the pen of Steven King, and more honest than anything from the mouths of the Bush Admin. If you want to see where trillions of your tax dollars are being wasted by greedy, incompetent ideolgues, this is a good place to start.

Though my Amazon-ordered, newly-released paperback edition of 'Imperial Life' was missing pages 191 - 194 (thanks, Vintage Books), I thoroughly enjoyed Rajiv Chandrasekaran's book. As others have noted, it's seminal reading in terms of understanding just how badly the US bollixed things up over there. All the professional review snippets in the paperback version rightly acclaim Chandrasekaran effort. As the NYT Book Review puts it, "it is eyewitness history of the first order." The late Molly Ivins sums up what every reader's reaction ought to be, regardless of political stripe: "How could we have let this happen? How could we have been that stupid?"

Everyone will have their favorite tale in here. Here's mine, which involves a business privatization effort...
-----
When the trio met with a team of Germans to discuss how factories in the former East Germany had been privatized, the CPA team was told that the Germans had eight thousand people working on the project. "How many guys do you have?" one of the Germans asked.

"You're looking at them," Corlis responded.

The German laughed and asked again. "No, how many people work for you?"

"No, this is it. Three people," Corliss said.

"Don't bother starting," the German said.
-----
That's the tone of the entire book.

Worth noting: though the reporting is set almost entirely in the bubble of the Green Zone, the author's feet are firmly planted in the Red Zone, i.e., which is basically _everything but_ the Green Zone. It's a courageous piece of work that will stand on its own legs for years to come. Kudos also to the editors at Knopf, who - as the author graciously acknowledges - pieced this reporting into a very compelling narrative.

This is good journalism, and persuasively conveys the tunnel vision, arrogance, and ignorance that together form the stew known as American foreign policy. Iraq is a "good" example of all these elements, abundantly displayed.

The weaknesses of the book--and the reason I give it only four stars--are two: first, it tells its story primarily by focusing on personalities, giving anecdotal illustrations both of the person's role and experiences in Iraq. This is very good for providing the reader with believable, understandable stories; however, it does not provide any kind of coherent "bigger picture." The author does mention surrounding events from time to time, but only as a way of providing backdrop to the anecdote or personality currently under examination.

The other problem with this book is that it presents the Coalition attack upon Iraq as simply a mistake: a series of mistakes, a patchwork of mistakes, a sad comedy of chances gone a' glimmering...but never what it was and fundamentally remains to this day: a war crime of the first order, an unprovoked attack upon a sovereign nation. Whether the author intended it or not, this view gives Americans (and others) pause only to the extent that *next time* we have to be smarter--not that there should *be* no "next time" when the US attacks another nation.

This book is quite well written, and shows the folly of arrogantly trying to rebuild Iraq after the war without having done the necessary homework on that country and with very selfish and dubious motives on the part of the Bush Administration. Nicely written book, informative and objective to the last page.

Any book has bias and I do not doubt that Rajiv Chandrasekaran, a journalist for the Washington Post, saw some things in Iraq in a bias way. Still, this book is a MUST read for anyone to better understand just where we went wrong in Iraq. At times, I felt I was reading a PJ O'Rourke or Carl Hiaasen book about government bureaucrats ruining yet another program. At other times, I just shook my head in disbelief and some of the arrogance and absurdity of the people put in positions of power in Baghdad. As I read the book I realized that it is no wonder that the Iraqi people are tired of us.

The author points out that many Americans were put in positions of power and authority with no real expertise or understanding of Iraqi culture or Islamic culture. Resumes from neoconservatives were all that was needed to head up programs so loyalty meant everything. The drawback, of course, was that people with no real idea of what the heck they were doing ended up bungling up everything they touched.

This book reminds me that our nation needs to stop and think of what our role is supposed to be. George Marshall, creator of the genius Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe, is spinning around in his grave right now as the incompetence in Iraq makes me wonder what happened to real leaders in our nation. Bremer? Rumsfeld? Cheney? Clueless. This book points that out with the evidence and it's a chilling reality of the mistakes we are making on an hourly basis in that nation.

I was working at the CPA during the time the author covers in his book. I think I may have been at some of the meetings he describes. He captures the sense of the CPA, a bunch of well-intentioned, hard-working people without much of a clue about how to run an occupation in an Arab country. These were heady times and we believed we were birthing a new democracy. Few of us were equipped to pull it off and the split between DoD and the rest of the US and coalition governments doomed us from the start.

I did a tour at the American Embassy in 2006, after the events recorded in "Imperial Life." It was fun being able to read about details of the Republican Palace, then go to that particular feature and see it for myself. More importantly, I could put what I read into context, both in the Embassy and in Iraq itself. Even though the CPA no longer occupies the Green Zone, the isolation of the military and state department staff from events occurring around us was similar to what happened to the CPA in "Imperial Life." Most staff (military included) rarely leave the the Green Zone making the average non-Iraqi resident unaware of what goes on beyond the walls. If you want to understand what living in the Green Zone is like, and why progress is slow in Iraq read this book.

"Imperial Life" is honest, first hand, information. The author has a good grasp of the subject, of the surroundings and above all, of reality. He is able to pick up the essentials and deal with them without exaggerating his importance or his role. He is a well informed man, as he should be. The book is very well put together, and a pleasure to read. It is above all, timely. This means, regretably, that its importance shall pass, as the events he decribe will give in time place to "new improved" versions. The importance for historians to come and to serious readers will not be diminished.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning about the reasons we are involved in Iraq. It is a personal account from a journalist who travels out of the green zone to get an inside look. The critical message I got from this book is that we shouldn't dictate how the people of Iraq should run their government. Rajiv Chandrasekaran with the Washington Post reports on the life of people involved with the CPA and their attempts to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure. His book outlines a critical perspective and helps to answer many questions. "Iraqi's needed help (good advice and ample resources) from a support of corps of well meaning foreigners, not a full scale occupation with imperial Americans cloistered in a palace of the tyrant, eating bacon and drinking beer, surrounded by Gurkhas and blast walls." Why should Americans be so concerned about Iraq being a democracy? Where the officials are debating over western ideas to propegate the policies of modernizing Iraq; In the shadow of a war torn country without the bare necessities for survival. The CPA who (couldn't produce anything) poisoned Iraq's politics and had big ideas of rebuilding Iraq, but couldn't provide essentials like: Safety for the Iraqi people, electricity, water, and adequate health care. You could argue both sides of this issue, but I think this book paints a very good portrait of life in the green zone.

Chandrasekaran was Baghdad bureau chief for the Washington Post when the American troops invaded Iraq. Imperial Life in the Emerald City chronicles life in the Green Zone based on his experiences and what he gleaned from his countless interviews. The time period covered is roughly from the first days of the U.S. invasion to Bremer's departure in 2004.

It is a tale of cronyism, hubris, myopia, incompetence, and well-intentioned people not having the appropriate resources (training, information, human or material resources) to perform their duties. It is about inter-governmental in-fighting, and about how political loyalty trumped experience (often with disastrous results). It is a story of how disconnected those leading the rebuilding effort in Iraq were with the Iraqi people and how imposing their ideals in Iraq resulted in greater unrest. It is a paradigm example of how failing to plan resulted in planning to fail.

The book would have been hilarious, except that the stories - as incredible as they are - are true! Knowing that this work is non-fiction makes it sad. Rick (Fiasco), Stewart (The Prince of the Marshes), Packer (Assassin's Gate), Woodward (State of Denial) and others seem to concur that the U.S. government has grossly mishandled the efforts in Iraq. Unfortunately, the price has been lives (both American and Iraqi, both civilian and military) as well as Iraqi and U.S. national resources.

Chandrasekran writes in the first person, and his writing style is easy, straight forward and engaging. Interspersed between chapters are vignettes on life within the Emerald City (a.k.a. Gre