There are a lot of things to like here, but much that I take issue with. I really enjoyed the discussions of the media and economic situations that occurred while re-building Iraq (these subjects are generally not as "catchy" as others in the media, and therefore, I didn't know much about them). I also enjoyed the vignettes about life in the "Green Zone" - most of which were entertaining departures from the heavy subject matter.

What I take issue with is what I generally do in any partisan writing: To me, the use of "most" and "all" makes me wary of what you are reporting. Likewise with the manner in which you portray real people as decidedly one-sided (one guy says another guy didn't do a good job, and therefore, he didn't do a good job). Use of inflammatory language, that really lends no assistance in the story you are trying to tell, when describing people (example - "he worked for Enron, among other private companies ..." or "he ran a clinic that counseled young women not to have abortions"). All coalition personnel in Iraq were there only through nepotism (as if that doesn't happen in any Administration).

I am not a Bush Administration apologist, but am a conservative. I believe that there were definitely mistakes made in this war, and the subsequent nation building that has ensued. But to claim that it was nothing more than a "neo-conservative experiment in Iraq" frustrated me throughout this book. On the vast scale of what was being attempted here, there are going to be issues. But solely focusing on the bad, while willfully disregarding any good, is irresponsible. Again, this is why I get frustrated with partisan tomes (but, apparently, still make the choice to read them as I do appreciate learning and involving myself in the debate).

So, all in all, I would recommend it. For me, however, some of his conclusions, where I clearly was supposed to be appalled by the US, at times left me thinking: Um, so? I agree with that. What's wrong with that? Other times, I was irritated by US imperialism and lack of qualified personnel, which was clearly the conclusion I was supposed to draw. So, if you're a bit more open-minded than a far-right or far-left politico, you would probably like what this book has to offer.

This book is both comforting and horrifying. It is comforting to realize that every horrible thing I ever thought about the Iraq policy of the Bush administration was true. Yes it was all true and this book explains why.

Policy was decided around a narrow series of idealogically based (vice fact based), ill-considered assumptions. Despite what we are likely to hear from the masters of spin, decisions and delusions revolved around the career of Chalabis and the fantastic tales he spun. And what tales these were. The main story was that given power a pro-Israeli democratic Arab country could be established in the Middle East. Note to nations of the Middle East, if you ever run short of cash, here is the line to take with the US. It certainly worked for Chalabis. Probably not since the tales of Scheherazade has more nonsense come out of the Moslem world. Western style democracy is probably beyond the nations of the Middle East, particularly now and one can hope that the main lesson learned from this experience is that this idiotic approach will be never attempted again.

What we have in this book is people attempting to learn the wrong lessons from history. Clearly the Bush administration imagined that Iraq could serve as a kind of West Germany of the Middle East if forced into democratic habits The idea is something contradictory, but one thing about this story is that what doesn't make sense is the only thing that did make sense. Clearly if a pro-western outpost could be created that would be prosperous and not eager to fund wars with Israel, a corner might be turned. These assumptions, taken as the were from an imperfect reading of the role the US played in ending the Cold War and bringing down the Soviet Union, while not paramount in the book, surely governed the behavior and choices undertaken by the policy makers. Of course no one realized that the Middle East is not Europe and Iraq was not Germany.

The horifying aspect of this book is just how little the people making policy really understood Iraq. They kept wanting to do things that would not have worked and did not work, that when they were implemented created disorder and were built around self-delusion. One wonders if the Bush administration was capable of doing anything right. When the main source of intel on Iraq by the CPA turns out to be "Iraq for Dummies" and a guide book from the 1970s, somehting is wrong.

Time and again as this book points out, understanding Iraq was something that the people making policy for the CPA categorically resisted, preferring to luxuriate in miasma of ignorance and ideology. Instead of seeking to stabalize the country, something that all democracies have in common, stability (democratic government could not function in any other environment), most of the members of the CPA preferred doing things that would not work and would only create more problems. Disbanding the army and deBaathification are two of the more insane policy proposals detailed in the book, but there were others. These included the privitization of industry, undermining most of the profitable industries in Iraq by eliminating their bank accounts in a massive debt forgiveness measure (so much for the hidden hand of the market), and the inability to do anything to keep the aging electric grib gowing for more than a few hours every day.

Perhaps the maddest plan yet to come out of the CPA was the idea to eliminate government subsidies and let the people fend for themselves after the war. A half way measure was to give everyone an ATM card instead of food allowing them at least to purchase necessities at stores and businesses. What was really insane about this idea was that Iraq did not have ATM machines, did not have power to run them for more than four hours a day, and finally debit cards were something that people just did not understand.

Yes the role of the CPA was one of shock and awe, but due in no small part to the willful ignorance of its members. This book documents the titanic failings of this enterprise with honesty and candor which I am sure others will attempt to undermine in the future. However, hopefully the truth will out.

The amount of arrogance and hubris this book exposes from the Bush administrations war in Iraq is enough to make anyone's blood pressure rise. The book almost reads as fiction because it is hard for the reader to believe that anyone, let alone the leaders of the free world, could be this arrogant and careless with war. Whether it is hiring college grads whose main work experience is driving an ice cream truck to the utter disregard for ensuring that the very best and brightest will be put to use on this dangerous and enormous task, this book is simply an indictment of the Bush administration. The utter incompetence would be bad if it was found to be in say the transportation department, but the fact that this level of incompetence and politicization is to be found in war making increases the level of culpability exponentially. This incompetence doesn't mean that a useless road gets built or that some trains don't run on time, but instead means that US men and women have died needlessly. Whether charges are ever brought or not, I can't understand how those responsible for this are able to live with themselves.

Chandrasekaran's book is an essential read for every American. It is essential that we learn these mistakes that were made so hopefully we will be more vigilant in ensuring they never happen again in the future. I highly recommend this book.

Easy to read, disturbing account of the US's occupation of Iraq and our infantile attempt to convert Iraq into a "US style" country.

We all read in newspapers & magazines a glossed-over account of the US's failed efforts in Iraq. This book gives many of the details of why we failed.

If you're a D, you're likely to be disgusted.

If you're a R, you probably won't want to read this.

Rajiv Chandrasekaran brings depth to the story behind the headlines. He has certainly taken a large body of knowledge and distilled it for easy consumption.

Now I know why stories of reconstruction were so fuzzy and few. Tommy Thompson (Secy of Health and Human Services) provides a photo-op for a new hospital --- opened in the Green Zone but not presented as such. Now I know how Casey (son of Cindy) Sheehan (and 7 others) died --- Bremer closed Moqtada al-Sadr's paper without alerting the US patrols of that area. I learned much more.

This book makes me angry all over again. One of the benefits of this endeavor could have been providing a better life for the Iraqis, but it's like Katrina on a larger scale. Even seasoned disaster or war zone professionals would find this a challenge. Mr. Chandrasekaran describes how people were hired, not because they were qualified, but for their connections, starting with the top, Jerry Bremer was tied to Henry Kissinger.

Did Bremer think that rendering 1/3 of the Iraqi population unemployed was a practical thing? Did Bremer think that changing the food rations (socialism) to debit cards (capitalism) in a country with no phone lines, computers, etc. was a practical thing? Fortunately a firefighter from Buffalo could explain this to him, but he may not have backed down if he hadn't had so many other problems.

The 24 year old hired to open the Iraqi stock exchange impeded its opening by fanciful attempts to copy the US stock exchange technology and regulations and on pages 229 -231, takes credit for its eventual opening in a manner, if not for him could have been done months earlier. This is the template for the attitude expressed by Bremer and others in the Green Zone reunion described at the end of the book.

The actions and the attitudes that spawned them clearly fit the patterns described in Conservatives Without Conscience. Some participants, like John Agresto have a more realistic appraisal of what could have been and what went wrong. Others may never understand. In the meanwhile, the missed opportunity has made life for Iraqis (for insight into this Waiting for an Ordinary Day: The Unraveling of Life in Iraq ) more difficult, and the latest news suggests little change.

Hubris plus ignorance with a dash of good intentions pretty much somes up the reign of the CPA in Iraq. Author Rajiv Chandrasekaran has written a wonderful travelogue into the heart of a what can only be described in hindsight as a fiasco. Sharply written, the book is filled with unique observations of life in post-war Bagdhad. I was especially struck by the stoicism (and optimism) of so many of the Iraqi people who appear in the book. This is a must read for anyone who wants to know how not to occupy a country.

This is very well done book that gives you a feeling of the surreal experience of living in Iraq's American zone in 2003-4.

The author captures the absurdity of an administrative effort that was so beholden to ideology that it lacked common sense, and practical, local expertise.

While I enjoyed it, the decision to tightly focus the narrative on tightly on Iraq may have been a mistake. When Bremer goes to Washington to report to the President, for example, we don't follow the drama back to Washington, but rather Bremer leaves Baghdad, then comes back and reports what was said.

Another book on Iraq, George Packard's The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraqgives a broader strategic perspective. I also preferred The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (Vintage)with which Amazon pairs this book, however, that is about Al Qaeda, not Iraq, and by now, I think we know, the two are not related.

Imperial Life and the Emerald City is the smoking gun on the failed occupation of Iraq. It fleshes out all the news accounts about the little planning that went into the occupation by the Bush administration before the invasion began.

Some of the details are stunning. Soldiers tossing bundles of dollar bills about for sport, wholly incompetent and inexperienced persons appointed to critical positions of importance, people placed in positions of importance solely because of their political affiliations, little regard placed on finding and securing the weapons of mass destruction that were supposed to constitute the grounds for the invasion (WMD that were never discovered), an on and off again approach to working closely with Iraqi nationals in setting up a new government and securing the good will of the Iraqi people during the interim to a new government, the numerous blunders made by the US that helped to create and sustain popular support for elements of the insurgency, the imposition of US economic models throughout various aspects of the Iraqi economy with little regard for the impact it would have on the Iraqi people, and so on. What we see is a picture of the US winging it during the occupation phase.

Although the author Rajiv Chandrasekaran never quite says so, one quickly gets the impression that the US approach to the occupation was faith-based. It appears to have been based on the assumption that the Iraqi people would be so delighted to be free from a ruthless dictatorship that most of the critical elements of the occupations would fall easily into place, that the cooperation and good will of the Iraqi people could be taken for granted. It was yet another example of imperial hubris.

I highly recommend this book. It is impossible to properly understand the occupation without reading it.

Conspiracy to defraud the American tax payer, by diabolical war profiteering of unprecedented scope, herein becomes obvious. Only the most delusional pollyanna could still believe the precepts of this war or the spin on its aftermath, given the exposure of the bare and simple facts by this level-headed work of pure journalistic daylight.

Iraq war contract awards have themselves completely exposed the truth to anyone who cares to look. No administration could possibly be so idiotic and blind as to have mistakenly allowed for the the graft so adamantly and unapologetically instituted and promoted by the US government in 2003.

Required reading before voting.

Lays out some of the most obvious failures of US invasion and post-war administration in Iraq. Clearly demonstrates that policy makers were so committed to ideology that they blinded themselves to the way things were--with disastrous effect. Administrators were chosen more for partisan loyalty than proven experience, and were tragically out-of-touch with events on the ground.

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.