WP: Best-Connected Were Sent to Rebuild Iraq (cronies sent to Iraq)

[sabra]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/16/AR2006091600193.html

Best-Connected Were Sent to Rebuild Iraq

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 17, 2006; Page A01

After the fall of Saddam Hussein's government in April 2003, the opportunity to participate in the U.S.-led effort to reconstruct Iraq attracted all manner of Americans -- restless professionals, Arabic-speaking academics, development specialists and war-zone adventurers. But before they could go to Baghdad, they had to get past Jim O'Beirne's office in the Pentagon.

To pass muster with O'Beirne, a political appointee who screens prospective political appointees for Defense Department posts, applicants didn't need to be experts in the Middle East or in post-conflict reconstruction. What they needed to be was a member of the Republican Party.

O'Beirne's staff posed blunt questions about domestic politics: Did you vote for George W. Bush in 2000? Do you support the way the president is fighting the war on terror? Two people who sought jobs with the U.S. occupation authority said they were even asked their views on Roe v. Wade .

Many of those chosen by O'Beirne's office to work for the Coalition Provisional Authority, which ran Iraq's government from April 2003 to June 2004, lacked vital skills and experience. A 24-year-old who had never worked in finance -- but had applied for a White House job -- was sent to reopen Baghdad's stock exchange. The daughter of a prominent neoconservative commentator and a recent graduate from an evangelical university for home-schooled children were tapped to manage Iraq's $13 billion budget, even though they didn't have a background in accounting.

[annabanana]

1. We got word of this travesty via

professionals on the ground. There are expressions of amazement from the people who SHOULD have been in charge. Where is Bremer these days? He needs to be seriously debriefed.

[soothsayer]

20. He's in his CT manse protected by SS, prolly sitting on those

missing millions (or was it billions?) from Iraq in his $1000 suits.

[msongs]

2. another HUGH indictment of republican corruption - swept under the rug

and ignored by americans. wonder if this article will make any difference?

or if TV will pick up on it.

Msongs
www.msongs.com/political-shirts.htm

[alcuno]

3. Just as I thought - Kate O'Beirne's husband.

"O'Beirne, a former Army officer who is married to prominent conservative commentator Kate O'Beirne"

[bumponalog]

15. She should be confronted with this

on Sunday morning. Somehow I doubt she will be.

[gratuitous]

4. Oh no! Corruption!

Why haven't Tom DeLay and Bob Ney been on this? Oh, wait; nevermind.

[NeoConsSuck]

12. It's only corruption

when the Dems do it.

[ShockediSay]

17. textbook case illustration of cronyism

as well as corruption

[young_at_heart]

5. Where is the outrage?

Just one more to add to the huge list that's been accumulating for some time.

[MarinCoUSA]

6. OK!@ Now tax the Repuklicns and draft them!

After the lies that killed, this story is exhibit 1 in the hoped for RICCO action "U.S. v Republican Party".

[Rose Siding]

7. Iraq is a REPUBLICAN failure.

No better proof than this.

[DoYouEverWonder]

8. But, but Valerie Plame

didn't send her husband to Niger.

[Vidar]

9. Carpetbaggers go global under Bush the carpetbagger.

[greenman3610]

10. Naomi Klein wrote about this in 2004

Baghdad in Year Zero, from Harpers

http://www.harpers.org/BaghdadYearZero.html

Bremer had two lieutenants on the economic front: Thomas Foley and Michael Fleischer, the heads of “private sector development” for the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). Foley is a Greenwich, Connecticut, multimillionaire, a longtime friend of the Bush family and a Bush-Cheney campaign “pioneer” who has described Iraq as a modern California “gold rush.” Fleischer, a venture capitalist, is the brother of former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer. Neither man had any high-level diplomatic experience and both use the term corporate “turnaround” specialist to describe what they do. According to Foley, this uniquely qualified them to manage Iraq's economy because it was “the mother of all turnarounds.”

Many of the other CPA postings were equally ideological. The Green Zone, the city within a city that houses the occupation headquarters in Saddam's former palace, was filled with Young Republicans straight out of the Heritage Foundation, all of them given responsibility they could never have dreamed of receiving at home. Jay Hallen, a twenty-four-year-old who had applied for a job at the White House, was put in charge of launching Baghdad's new stock exchange. Scott Erwin, a twenty-one-year-old former intern to Dick Cheney, reported in an email home that “I am assisting Iraqis in the management of finances and budgeting for the domestic security forces.” The college senior's favorite job before this one? “My time as an ice-cream truck driver.” In those early days, the Green Zone felt a bit like the Peace Corps, for people who think the Peace Corps is a communist plot. It was a chance to sleep on cots, wear army boots, and cry “incoming”—all while being guarded around the clock by real soldiers.

[wellst0nev0ter]

16. I Was Drinking My Own Bile Ever Since I Saw The Original Post Article

In Iraq, the Job Opportunity of a Lifetime
Managing a $13 Billion Budget With No Experience
By Ariana Eunjung Cha
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 23, 2004; Page A01


BAGHDAD -- It was after nightfall when they finally found their offices at Saddam Hussein's Republican Palace -- 11 jet-lagged, sweaty, idealistic volunteers who had come to help Iraq along the road to democracy.

When the U.S. government went looking for people to help rebuild Iraq, they had responded to the call. They supported the war effort and President Bush. Many had strong Republican credentials. They were in their twenties or early thirties and had no foreign service experience. On that first day, Oct. 1, they knew so little about how things worked that they waited hours at the airport for a ride that was never coming. They finally discovered the shuttle bus out of the airport but got off at the wrong stop.

Occupied Iraq was just as Simone Ledeen had imagined -- ornate mosques, soldiers in formation, sand blowing everywhere, "just like on TV." The 28-year-old daughter of neoconservative pundit Michael Ledeen and a recently minted MBA, she had arrived on a military transport plane with the others and was eager to get to work.

They had been hired to perform a low-level task: collecting and organizing statistics, surveys and wish lists from the Iraqi ministries for a report that would be presented to potential donors at the end of the month. But as suicide bombs and rocket attacks became almost daily occurrences, more and more senior staffers defected. In short order, six of the new young hires found themselves managing the country's $13 billion budget, making decisions affecting millions of Iraqis.

Viewed from the outside, their experience illustrates many of the problems that have beset the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), a paucity of experienced applicants, a high turnover rate, bureaucracy, partisanship and turf wars. But within their group, inside the "Green Zone," the four-mile strip surrounded by cement blast walls where Iraq's temporary rulers are based, their seven months at the CPA was the experience of a lifetime. It was defined by long hours, patriotism, friendship, sacrifice and loss.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48543-2004May22.html

:grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr:

[grasswire]

21. Simone Ledeen is a bona fide Freeper

She was posting on freerepublic.com FROM IRAQ while doing this work.

[tex-wyo-dem]

11. A complete neo-con boondoggle...

A once in a lifetime chance to rape the finances of not only the country you're occupying, but the U.S. as well.

The way to hide it? Hire nothing but wacko neo-con, Christan fundametalist, new world order idealogs...you know, the "ends justify the means" crowd.

So where's the $8 or $9 billion missing from the CPA, I wonder. Undoubtably lining the pockets of the same people mentioned above.

[Dover]

13. Same is true with the contracts for N. Orleans and Border Security

and any other opportunistic or self-created crisis.

[kskiska]

14. Sid Blumenthal wrote about this book

(snip)

The Green Zone, according to Chandrasekaran, was "Baghdad's Little America," an insular bubble where Americans went to familiar fast-food joints, watched the latest movies, lived in air-conditioned comfort, had their laundry cleaned and pressed promptly, drove GMC Suburbans and listened to a military FM radio station, "Freedom Radio," that played "classic rock and rah-rah messages." Most Americans in the Green Zone wore suede combat boots. In the office of Dan Senor, the CPA press secretary, only one of his three TVs was turned on -- to Fox News.

Jay Garner, a retired lieutenant general, was appointed the head of the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, the precursor to the CPA. On his way to Iraq, Garner asked the neoconservative Douglas Feith, the undersecretary of defense for policy, for the planning memos and documents for postwar Iraq. Feith told him there were none. Garner was never shown the State Department's 17 volumes of planning titled "The Future of Iraq" or the CIA's analyses. Feith's former law partner, Michael Mobbs, was appointed head of civil administration. Mobbs had no background in the Middle East or in civil administration. "He just cowered in his room most of the time," one former ambassador recalled. Mobbs lasted two weeks.

Garner was "a deer in the headlights," said Timothy Carney, a former ambassador recruited for ORHA. Feith and the neocons assumed their favorite, Ahmed Chalabi, and his exiles would seamlessly take power and the rest would be a glide path. After Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld allowed the looting of Iraqi ministries -- "Freedom's untidy," he said -- the U.S. officials supposedly building the new Iraq took weeks to survey the charred ruins. "I never knew what our plans were," Garner said. Rumsfeld personally tried to cut every single State Department officer from Garner's team. Soon, Garner himself fell into disfavor, and a replacement was sought. Moderate Republicans, like William Cohen, a former secretary of defense, were vetoed as being not the "right kind of Republican." L. Paul "Jerry" Bremer III, an experienced rightward-leaning diplomat, was selected. Henry Kissinger told Colin Powell at the time that Bremer, who had worked at Kissinger Associates, was "a control freak."

Bremer claims he argued with Rumsfeld over the failure to commit half a million troops to provide security in the country. But Bremer told Chandrasekaran on the spot, "I think we've got as many soldiers as we need here right now." Feith's office drew up an order banning members of the Baath Party, the only party permitted in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, from holding any responsible position in government or business. Of course, those were just about the only trained personnel in Iraq, and many of them belonged to the party to hold their jobs. "You're going to drive 50,000 Baathists underground before nightfall," warned Garner. "Don't do this." Immediately after receiving Garner's caution, Bremer announced the purge. Then Bremer disbanded the Iraqi military at the suggestion of Feith and Walter Slocombe, a consultant brought in by Feith, who had preceded Feith in his job in the Clinton administration and was now on board. Chandrasekaran asked a former soldier about the disbanded army, "What happened to everyone there? Did they join the new army?" The reply came back: "They're all insurgents now."

more…
http://salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2006/09/14/iraq/

[crossroads]

18. Good post... thanks! n/t

[sjdnb]

19. Bush misunderestimates founding fathers

"It is not easy to conceive a possibility that dangers so formidable can assail the whole Union, as to demand a force considerable enough to place our liberties in the least jeopardy, especially if we take into our view the aid to be derived from the militia, which ought always to be counted upon as a valuable and powerful auxiliary. But in a state of disunion (as has been fully shown in another place), the contrary of this supposition would become not only probable, but almost unavoidable." Federalist #26, Alexander Hamilton

[cassiepriam]

22. And they are doing a heck of a job, Brownie. nt

[cyberpj]

23. Kicked - This is the article Reid was referencing on cspan today!

And here's more on the same book:

Mistakes Were Made
How L. Paul Bremer's occupation paved the way for today's chaos in Baghdad.

Reviewed by Moisés Naím
Sunday, September 17, 2006; Page BW07

IMPERIAL LIFE IN THE EMERALD CITY
Inside Iraq's Green Zone
Rajiv Chandrasekaran

snip...

Take, for example, the story of Frederick M. Burkle Jr., a Navy reserve officer and physician with two Bronze Stars whom a colleague describes as "the single most talented and experienced post-conflict health specialist working for the United States government." Burkle was ousted a week after Baghdad's liberation because, he was told by his superiors, the White House preferred to have a Bush "loyalist" in charge of health matters in Iraq. Burkle was replaced (fully two months later) by James K. Haveman Jr., a social worker whose experience as the community-health director for Michigan's former Republican governor, John Engler, had followed a stint running "a large Christian adoption agency in Michigan that urged pregnant women not to have abortions." Haveman had also traveled widely "in his capacity as a director of International Aid, a faith-based relief organization that provided health care while promoting Christianity in the developing world." (That pro-life stance was not uncommon in the CPA: Two staffers report being asked during their job interviews if they supported the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade ruling.) Chandrasekaran's rendition of Haveman's performance in Iraq makes for unnerving reading: the launch of an antismoking campaign while hospitals lacked pain killers; the emphasis on preventive medicine in a country ravaged by a bloody insurgency; an attempt to refashion Iraq's health care system with a U.S.-inspired model based on private providers, co-payments and primary care while newborns routinely died for lack of incubators.

Or take the case of Capt. John Smathers, a reservist and personal-injury lawyer charged with bringing some order to the chaotic traffic jams that ensued after U.S. authorities eliminated all import duties and the country was flooded by imported used cars. The solution? Download Maryland's motor-vehicle code from the Internet, translate it into Arabic and, after much haggling and revision, have Bremer sign it into law. CPA Order 86 included provisions such as, "Pedestrians walking during darkness or cloudy weather shall wear light or reflective clothing."

Micromanaging and emulating U.S. institutions was also the instinct of Jay Hallen, the clueless 24-year-old in charge of reopening the Baghdad stock market. His approach was to create one patterned after the New York Stock Exchange. (No, it didn't work.) Nor was Hallen the only inexperienced twentysomething CPA staffer given responsibilities for which he was utterly unprepared. Six of the "ten young gofers" that the CPA had requested from the Pentagon to handle minor administrative tasks found themselves managing Iraq's $13-billion budget. Where did the Pentagon recruit them? From the Heritage Foundation; they had sent their resumes there, looking for work in that conservative think tank.

When so much money is combined with organizational chaos, a state of emergency and the expectation that powerful friends in Washington would provide any needed cover, corruption is inevitable. Sure enough, Chandrasekaran offers tales of corruption among American contractors that read like dispatches from a kleptocratic banana republic.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/14/AR2006091401329.html?sub=AR

[Supersedeas]

24. see how Dimson continue to unite the country and even his own party

What a patriot Karl Rove must be -- win at any costs, win at ANY COSTS