Thursday, 16 August 2007


TITLE: IMPERIAL LIFE IN THE EMERALD CITY – INSIDE BAGHDAD’S GREEN ZONE

AUTHOR: Rajiv Chandrasekaran

DATE PUBLISHED: 2007

DATE READ: August 2007

NOTES: Superbly researched and lucid account of the US attempts to impose a new order in post-invasion Iraq. Records the unreal life led by the Americans in the Green Zone compared to the unfolding chaos in the rest of the country. He also tells of how the main criterion when recruiting staff was allegiance to the Republican Party rather than any past relevant experience. Also very revealing on how differing US agencies were at odds with one another and were trying to impose differing agendas. Breathtaking amounts of dollars were paid to contractors who then failed to carry out their agreed work while other people with specific needs to aid the reconstruction were denied any real funding.

A hard hitting account of the blunders, venality and cynicism of the occupiers but at the same time Chandrasekaran acknowledges the undoubted good motives of many of those involved in this continuing tragedy of a broken country.

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