On Iraq, U.S. Turns to Onetime Dissenters

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran

Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 14, 2007

Timothy M. Carney went to Baghdad in April 2003 to run Iraq's Ministry of Industry and Minerals. Unlike many of his compatriots in the Green Zone, the rangy, retired American ambassador wasn't fazed by chaos. He'd been in Saigon during the Tet Offensive, Phnom Penh as it was falling to the Khmer Rouge and Mogadishu in the throes of Somalia's civil war. Once he received his Halliburton-issued Chevrolet Suburban, he disregarded security edicts and drove around Baghdad without a military escort. His mission, as he put it, "was to listen to the Iraqis and work with them."
    He left after two months, disgusted and disillusioned. The U.S. occupation administration in Iraq, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), placed ideology over pragmatism, he believed. His boss, viceroy L. Paul Bremer, refused to pay for repairs needed to reopen many looted state-owned factories, even though they had employed tens of thousands of Iraqis. Carney spent his days screening workers for ties to the Baath Party.

"Planning was bad," he wrote in his diary on May 8, "but implementation is worse."       WaPo Article

    So now the Bush administration is going to try to play nice with all of the groups that were disbanded after the United States raided Iraq. This should be an interesting deal for the U.S. because you can bet that the disbanded groups are going to have their respective hands out with the "What have you done for me lately?" words on their lips when Bushco comes to town.

   Do we actually pay Bush real currency for this crap? If so, we need a refund!

 

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