| 28th December 2006 01:38 PM |
|
|
| Starbuck |
i heard the author of a new book on the first year in iraq on NPR this morning (dirty liberal radio station!). Rajiv Chandrasekaran was his name, and the book was called "Imperial Life in the Emerald City". absofuckinglutely shocking information on the corruptness of the first year of the war and how the bush white house turned the administration of iraq over to right wing loyalists that didn't even speak arabic. perhaps that will be next on my reading list!
here are a few excerpts from an online book review:
------
This book tells the bureaucratic story of Iraq's Year 1, when the United States was the legal occupying power and responsible for the country's administration. The primary mechanism for that work was the Coalition Provisional Authority, headquartered in the Green Zone, a blast-barrier-encased compound created around Hussein's Baghdad palace, on the west bank of the Tigris. Chandrasekaran, The Washington Post's Baghdad bureau chief during this period, catalogs a lethal combination of official arrogance and ineptitude behind those walls that doomed Iraq to its bloody present every bit as much as insufficient military manpower did.
To begin with, loyalty to George W. Bush and the Republican Party was apparently the prime criterion for getting work at the C.P.A. To determine their suitability for positions in Iraq, some prospective employees were asked their views on Roe v. Wade. Others were asked whom they voted for in 2000. Republican congressmen, conservative think tanks and party activists were all solicited by the White House's liaison at the Pentagon, James O'Beirne, to suggest possible staffers.
Before the war began, Frederick M. Burkle Jr. was assigned to oversee Iraq's health care system. He had a résumé to die for: a physician with a master's degree in public health, and postgraduate degrees from Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth and Berkeley. He also had two bronze stars for military service in the Navy, as well as field experience with the Kurds in northern Iraq after the 1991 gulf war. A week after the liberation, he was told he was being replaced because, Chandrasekaran writes, ''a senior official at USAID told him that the White House wanted a 'loyalist' in the job.''
That loyalist was James K. Haveman Jr., who had been recommended by the former Michigan governor John Engler. Haveman's résumé included running a Christian adoption agency that counseled young women against abortions. He spent much of his time in Iraq preparing to privatize the state-owned drug supply firm -- perhaps not the most important priority since almost every hospital in the country had been thoroughly looted in the days after Hussein was overthrown.
--------------------
read the rest of the review at
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE3DF1731F934A25751C1A9609C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2
[Edited by Starbuck] |
| 28th December 2006 09:34 PM |
|
|
| killerbitch |
Thanks for a very enlightening article. Also Rolling Stone magazine has had
some very eye opening stuff on the Republicans during the Bush Administration for several months. I am glad to see this is getting out as it
should be. I did NOT vote for Bush and will be glad when he is finally out of
office for good. |
| 28th December 2006 11:23 PM |
|
|
| pdog |
Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone
Excerpt
Chapter 1
Versailles on the Tigris
UNLIKE ALMOST ANYWHERE else in Baghdad, you could dine at the cafeteria in the Republican Palace for six months and never eat hummus, flatbread, or a lamb kebab. The fare was always American, often with a Southern flavor. A buffet featured grits, cornbread, and a bottomless barrel of pork: sausage for breakfast, hot dogs for lunch, pork chops for dinner. There were bacon cheeseburgers, grilled-cheese-and-bacon sandwiches, and bacon omelets. Hundreds of Iraqi secretaries and translators who worked for the occupation authority had to eat in the dining hall. Most of them were Muslims, and many were offended by the presence of pork. But the American contractors running the kitchen kept serving it. The cafeteria was all about meeting American needs for high-calorie, high-fat comfort food.
None of the succulent tomatoes or the crisp cucumbers grown in Iraq made it into the salad bar. U.S. government regulations dictated that everything, even the water in which hot dogs were boiled, be shipped in from approved suppliers in other nations. Milk and bread were trucked in from Kuwait, as were tinned peas and carrots. The breakfast cereal was flown in from the United States–made-in-the-USA. Froot Loops and Frosted Flakes at the breakfast table helped boost morale.
When the Americans had arrived, there was no cafeteria in the palace. Saddam Hussein had feasted in an ornate private dining room and his servants had eaten in small kitchenettes. The engineers assigned to transform the palace into the seat of the American occupation chose a marble-floored conference room the size of a gymnasium to serve as the mess hall. Through its gilded doors, Halliburton, the defense contractor hired to run the palace, brought in dozens of tables, hundreds of stacking chairs, and a score of glass-covered buffets. Seven days a week, the Americans ate under Saddam's crystal chandeliers.
Red and white linens covered the tables. Diners sat on chairs with maroon cushions. A pleated skirt decorated the salad bar and the dessert table, which was piled high with cakes and cookies. The floor was polished after every meal.
A mural of the World Trade Center adorned one of the entrances. The Twin Towers were framed within the outstretched wings of a bald eagle. Each branch of the U.S. military–the army, air force, marines, and navy–had its seal on a different corner of the mural. In the middle were the logos of the New York City Police and Fire departments, and atop the towers were the words thank god for the coalition forces & freedom fighters at home and abroad.
At another of the three entrances was a bulletin board with posted notices, including those that read
BIBLE STUDY–WEDNESDAYS AT 7 P.M.
GO RUNNING WITH THE HASH HOUSE HARRIERS!
FEELING STRESSED? COME VISIT US AT THE COMBAT STRESS CLINIC.
FOR SALE: LIKE-NEW HUNTING KNIFE.
LOST CAMERA. REWARD OFFERED.
The kitchen, which had once prepared gourmet meals for Saddam, had been converted into an institutional food—processing center, with a giant deep fryer and bathtub-size mixing bowls. Halliburton had hired dozens of Pakistanis and Indians to cook and serve and clean, but no Iraqis. Nobody ever explained why, but everyone knew. They could poison the food.
The Pakistanis and the Indians wore white button-down shirts with black vests, black bow ties, and white paper hats. The Kuwaiti subcontractor who kept their passports and exacted a meaty profit margin off each worker also dinned into them American lingo. When I asked one of the Indians for French fries, he snapped: "We have no French fries here, sir. Only freedom fries."
The seating was as tribal as that at a high school cafeteria. The Iraqi support staffers kept to themselves. They loaded their lunch trays with enough calories for three meals. Between mouthfuls, they mocked their American bosses with impunity. So few Americans in the palace spoke Arabic fluently that those who did could have fit around one table, with room to spare.
Soldiers, private contractors, and mercenaries also segregated themselves. So did the representatives of the "coalition of the willing"– the Brits, the Aussies, the Poles, the Spaniards, and the Italians. The American civilians who worked for the occupation government had their own cliques: the big-shot political appointees, the twentysomethings fresh out of college, the old hands who had arrived in Baghdad in the first weeks of occupation. In conversation at their tables, they observed an unspoken protocol. It was always appropriate to praise "the mission"–the Bush administration's campaign to transform Iraq into a peaceful, modern, secular democracy where everyone, regardless of sect or ethnicity, would get along. Tirades about how Saddam had ruined the country and descriptions of how you were going to resuscitate it were also fine. But unless you knew someone really, really well, you didn't question American policy over a meal.
If you had a complaint about the cafeteria, Michael Cole was the man to see. He was Halliburton's "customer-service liaison," and he could explain why the salad bar didn't have Iraqi produce or why pork kept appearing on the menu. If you wanted to request a different type of breakfast cereal, he'd listen. Cole didn't have the weathered look of a war-zone concierge. He was a rail-thin twenty-two-year-old whose forehead was dotted with pimples.
He had been out of college for less than a year and was working as a junior aide to a Republican congressman from Virginia when a Halliburton vice president overheard him talking to friends in an Arlington bar about his dealings with irate constituents. She was so impressed that she introduced herself. If she needed someone to work as a valet in Baghdad, he joked, he'd be happy to volunteer. Three weeks later, Halliburton offered him a job. Then they asked for his résumé.
Cole never ate pork products in the mess hall. He knew many of the servers were Pakistani Muslims and he felt terrible that they had to handle food they deemed offensive. He was rewarded for his expression of respect with invitations to the Dickensian trailer park where the kitchen staff lived. They didn't have to abide by American rules governing food procurement. Their kitchens were filled with local produce, and they cooked spicy curries that were better than anything Cole found in the cafeteria. He thought of proposing an Indian- Pakistani food night at the mess hall, but then remembered that the palace didn't do ethnic fare. "The cooking had to make people feel like they were back at home," he said. And home, in this case, was presumed to be somewhere south of the Mason-Dixon Line.
Cole's mission was to keep the air in the bubble, to ensure that the Americans who had left home to work for the occupation administration felt comfortable. Food was part of it. But so were movies, mattresses, and laundry service. If he was asked for something, Cole tried to get it, whether he thought it important or not. "Yes, sir. We'll look into that," he'd say. Or, "I'm sorry you're so upset. We'll try to fix it as soon as possible."
The palace was the headquarters of the Coalition Provisional Authority, the American occupation administration in Iraq. From April 2003 to June 2004, the CPA ran Iraq's government–it enacted laws, printed currency, collected taxes, deployed police, and spent oil revenue. At its height, the CPA had more than 1,500 employees in Baghdad, most of them American. They were a motley bunch: businessmen who were active in the Republican Party, retirees who wanted one last taste of adventure, diplomats who had studied Iraq for years, recent college graduates who had never had a full-time job, government employees who wanted the 25 percent salary bonus paid for working in a war zone. The CPA was headed by America's viceroy in Iraq, Lewis Paul Bremer III, who always wore a blue suit and tan combat boots, even on those summer days when Iraqis drooped in the heat. He was surrounded by burly, machine gun—toting bodyguards everywhere he went, even to the bathroom in the palace.
The palace was Versailles on the Tigris. Constructed of sandstone and marble, it had wide hallways, soaring columns, and spiral staircases. Massive bronze busts of Saddam in an Arab warrior's headdress looked down from the four corners of the roof. The cafeteria was on the south side, next to a chapel with a billboard-size mural of a Scud missile arcing into the sky. In the northern wing was an enormous ballroom with a balcony overlooking the dance floor. The heart of the palace was a giant marble rotunda with a turquoise dome. After the Americans arrived, the entire place took on the slapdash appearance of a start-up company. Dell computers sat atop ornate wooden desks partitioned by fabric-covered cubicle dividers. Data cables snaked along the gilded moldings. Erasable whiteboards hung from the mirrored walls.
A row of portable toilets lined the rear driveway. The palace, designed as a showplace for Saddam to meet visiting dignitaries, lacked enough commodes for hundreds of occupants. Dormitory space was also in short supply. Most new arrivals had to sleep on bunk beds in the chapel, a room that came to resemble a World War II field hospital.
Appearances aside, the same rules applied in the palace as in any government building in Washington. Everyone wore an identification badge. Decorum was enforced in the high-ceilinged halls. I remember hearing a soldier admonish a staffer hustling to a meeting: "Ma'am, you must not run in the corridor."
Whatever could be outsourced was. The job of setting up town and city councils was performed by a North Carolina firm for $236 million. The job of guarding the viceroy was assigned to private guards, each of whom made more than $1,000 a day. For running the palace–cooking the food, changing the lightbulbs, doing the laundry, watering the plants– Halliburton had been handed hundreds of millions of dollars.
Halliburton had been hired to provide "living support" services to the CPA. What that meant kept evolving. When the first Americans arrived in Baghdad in the weeks after Saddam's government was toppled, all anyone wanted was food and water, laundry service, and air-conditioning. By the time Cole arrived, in August 2003, four months into the occupation, the demands had grown. The viceroy's house had to be outfitted with furniture and art suitable for a head of state. The Halliburton-run sports bar at the al-Rasheed Hotel needed a Foosball table. The press conference room required large-screen televisions.
The Green Zone quickly became Baghdad's Little America. Everyone who worked in the palace lived there, either in white metal trailers or in the towering al-Rasheed. Hundreds of private contractors working for firms including Bechtel, General Electric, and Halliburton set up trailer parks there, as did legions of private security guards hired to protect the contractors. The only Iraqis allowed inside the Green Zone were those who worked for the Americans or those who could prove that they had lived there before the war.
It was Saddam who first decided to turn Baghdad's prime riverfront real estate into a gated city within a city, with posh villas, bungalows, government buildings, shops, and even a hospital. He didn't want his aides and bodyguards, who were given homes near his palace, to mingle with the masses. And he didn't want outsiders peering in. The homes were bigger, the trees greener, the streets wider than in the rest of Baghdad. There were more palms and fewer people. There were no street vendors and no beggars. No one other than members of Saddam's inner circle or his trusted cadre of guards and housekeepers had any idea what was inside. Those who loitered near the entrances sometimes landed in jail. Iraqis drove as fast as they could on roads near the compound lest they be accused of gawking.
It was the ideal place for the Americans to pitch their tents. Saddam had surrounded the area with a tall brick wall. There were only three points of entry. All the military had to do was park tanks at the gates.
The Americans expanded Saddam's neighborhood by a few blocks to encompass the gargantuan Convention Center and the al-Rasheed, a once- luxurious establishment made famous by CNN's live broadcasts during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. They fortified the walls with seventeen- foot-high blast barriers made of foot-thick concrete topped with coils of razor wire.
Open spaces became trailer parks with grandiose names. CPA staffers unable to snag a room at the al-Rasheed lived in Poolside Estates. Cole and his fellow Halliburton employees were in Camp Hope. The Brits dubbed their accommodations Ocean Cliffs. At first, the Americans felt sorry for the Brits, whose trailers were in a covered parking garage, which seemed dark and miserable. But when the insurgents began firing mortars into the Green Zone, everyone wished they were in Ocean Cliffs. The envy increased when Americans discovered that the Brits didn't have the same leaky trailers with plastic furniture supplied by Halliburton; theirs had been outfitted by Ikea.
Americans drove around in new GMC Suburbans, dutifully obeying the thirty-five-mile-an-hour speed limit signs posted by the CPA on the flat, wide streets. There were so many identical Suburbans parked in front of the palace that drivers had to use their electronic door openers as homing devices. (One contractor affixed Texas license plates to his vehicle to set it apart.) When they cruised around, they kept the air-conditioning on high and the radio tuned to 107.7 FM, Freedom Radio, an American-run station that played classic rock and rah-rah messages. Every two weeks, the vehicles were cleaned at a Halliburton car wash.
Shuttle buses looped around the Green Zone at twenty-minute intervals, stopping at wooden shelters to transport those who didn't have cars and didn't want to walk. There was daily mail delivery. Generators ensured that the lights were always on. If you didn't like what was being served in the cafeteria–or you were feeling peckish between meals–you could get takeout from one of the Green Zone's Chinese restaurants. Halliburton's dry cleaning service would get the dust and sweat stains out of your khakis in three days. A sign warned patrons to remove ammunition from pockets before submitting clothes.
Iraqi laws and customs didn't apply inside the Green Zone. Women jogged on the sidewalk in shorts and T-shirts. A liquor store sold imported beer, wine, and spirits. One of the Chinese restaurants offered massages as well as noodles. The young boys selling DVDs near the palace parking lot had a secret stash. "Mister, you want porno?" they often whispered to me.
Most Americans sported suede combat boots, expensive sunglasses, and nine-millimeter Berettas attached to the thigh with a Velcro holster. They groused about the heat and the mosquitoes and the slothful habits of the natives. A contingent of Gurkhas stood as sentries in front of the palace.
©2006 Rajiv Chandrasekaran | Website by 4Site Interactive Studios, Inc. |
| 29th December 2006 12:32 AM |
|
|
| glencar |
quote:
killerbitch wrote:
Thanks for a very enlightening article. Also Rolling Stone magazine has had
some very eye opening stuff on the Republicans during the Bush Administration for several months. I am glad to see this is getting out as it
should be. I did NOT vote for Bush and will be glad when he is finally out of
office for good.
So in other words, when reading that Rolling Stone article, you were just confirming what you already believed. You're not one for challenging yourself, are you? |
| 29th December 2006 12:33 AM |
|
|
| glencar |
As much as I despise the Brit royals, this guy is challenging himself & shows himself to be a fucking real adult!
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,20982185-5001021,00.html |
| 29th December 2006 12:33 AM |
|
|
| glencar |
PRINCE Harry is going to Iraq, reportedly heading there with his unit in May.
Harry will be stationed near the southern port city of Basra and will likely be assigned to patrol the border with Iran.
London's Daily Telegraph said Harry, 22, is determined to go, despite reports of resistance from many in the military who fear he would be a fat prize for terrorists.
They're also worried he would attract attention and put his fellow soldiers in greater danger.
The Telegraph said officials are trying to figure out how to minimise the danger without giving Harry special treatment.
As a second lieutenant, he will have command of 11 men and four light tanks.
Meanwhile, the Prince has joined girlfriend Chelsy Davy, 21, and her family on Bazaruto Island, off Mozambique, for the third year running for a holiday courtesy of safari operator Charles Davy.
Harry has become increasingly close to the Zimbabwean-born tycoon, who has been widely criticised for his links to Robert Mugabe.
Mr Davy is one of the country's biggest landowners and is thought to control about 1 per cent of all agricultural land at a time when many white farmers are being brutally forced out of their livelihood.
Harry has refused to hear a word against him and has once more chosen to abandon the Royal Family's traditional New Year at Sandringham in favour of spending his holiday with the Davy clan. |
| 29th December 2006 03:56 AM |
|
|
| Taptrick |
NPR and Rolling Stone - oh
|
| 29th December 2006 09:19 AM |
|
|
| rasputin56 |
Funny how the righties haven't realized yet that the NPR board has been slowly taken over by their kind for the past few years. With the latest addition, Warren Bell, who is yet another recess appointment by King George.
"I am thoroughly conservative in ways that strike horror into the hearts of my Hollywood colleagues. I support a woman's right to choose what movie we should see, but not that other one." - Warren Bell
"I could reach across the aisle and hug Nancy Pelosi, and I would, except this is a new shirt, and that sort of thing leaves a stain." - Warren Bell (yes, it's funny and I laughed out loud reading it but this guy aint' no liberal)
|
| 29th December 2006 11:35 AM |
|
|
| glencar |
It'll take a hundred Warren Bells to change the tone of NPR. He's a nice start however! |
| 29th December 2006 11:43 AM |
|
|
| rasputin56 |
I rarely listen to NPR but when I do it is a far cry from this bastion of liberalism that those on the right make it out to be. Same thing with PBS. Why is that any type of news reporting that is not blatant cheerleading for the Republicans is considered "liberal bias"? Sometimes the truth is simply the truth. One side may not like it but that doesn't make it biased.
Anyways, Bell isn't a start, it's a continuation. The Board has been leaning right for quite some time now. |
| 29th December 2006 12:01 PM |
|
|
| glencar |
I watched CNN the other night. The anchor was a substitute for Anderson Cooper. He had a panel of 4 commentators to discuss the year past. Lewis Black, Arianna Huffington, Wade Somebody from Nat'l Geographic & Reza Azlan. The first 3 were all reliably lefty from Word One & the last one was somewhat moderate but certainly no conservative. They blathered on so long that CNN was at least 10 minutes behind FOX in covering the death of Jerry Ford. Say what you will about FOX/Faux but they usually have balanced panels. If you see 4 people chatting, they are usually 2 libs & 2 cons. Why can't CNN do the same? I don't watch McNeil/Lehrer anymore but the few times I've caught it it does seem a bit more balanced. NPR is just like CNN but their commercials are shorter. |
| 29th December 2006 02:09 PM |
|
|
| Maxlugar |
quote:
rasputin56 wrote:
I rarely listen to NPR but when I do it is a far cry from this bastion of liberalism that those on the right make it out to be. Same thing with PBS.
You are officially a retard. Come down front and get your helmet.
[Edited by Maxlugar] |
| 29th December 2006 02:50 PM |
|
|
| Taptrick |
NPR attracts a differrent type of individual than a market driven radio format. Doesn't matter who is at the top. If it's such a great idea let someone invest some money in it above the 89.9 range and see if the market supports it. I say it would fly about as well as Air America.
[Edited by Taptrick] |
| 29th December 2006 03:28 PM |
|
|
| rasputin56 |
quote:
Maxlugar wrote:
You are offically a retard. Come down front and get your helmet.
No thanks, I believe you still need it. Happy holidays, Corky, Sr. |
| 29th December 2006 06:09 PM |
|
|
| pdog |
No one is taking the retard helmet crown from me...
|
| 29th December 2006 06:19 PM |
|
|
| glencar |
I thought Flea ran off with it, no? |
| 29th December 2006 06:21 PM |
|
|
| Dan |
NPR seems to cover story in a bit more detail than the other news outlets. And the only people whining about the liberal slant are the righties who never listen to it just repeating what they have been spoonfed. |
| 29th December 2006 06:27 PM |
|
|
| glencar |
LOL Yes, we never give examples of bias or anything. Please read my earlier post before you spout gibberish. |
| 29th December 2006 06:36 PM |
|
|
| Taptrick |
I listen to NPR and acknowledge they at times do have quality - however it does not attract the numbers that would allow its existence in a free market. Those that like it only enjoy it's existance via forced funding/taxation. There is simply no away around the reality that if it is such a desireably entity - it would be duplicated in the free (funny word free) market. I wonder why it hasn't been?
[Edited by Taptrick]
[Edited by Taptrick] |
| 29th December 2006 06:44 PM |
|
|
| Dan |
quote:
glencar wrote:
LOL Yes, we never give examples of bias or anything. Please read my earlier post before you spout gibberish.
Actually your example was CNN... |
| 29th December 2006 06:47 PM |
|
|
| glencar |
Your point? |
| 29th December 2006 06:51 PM |
|
|
| Dan |
quote:
Taptrick wrote:
I listen to NPR and acknowledge they at times do have quality - however it does not attract the numbers that would allow its existence in a free market. Those that like it only enjoy it's existance via forced funding/taxation. There is simply no away around the reality that if if it is such a desireably entity - it would be duplicated in the free (funny word free) market. I wonder why it hasn't been?
Actually I have "supported" the local affiliate from time to time for the music programming so I have paid for it through other means. For the most part I am against pretty much most types of so called discretionary spending but with the types of runaway spending perpetuated by so-called conservatives, NPR would be toward the bottom of my list of things to get the axe.
But I just don't see the extreme liberal bias some here accuse it of. |
| 29th December 2006 06:52 PM |
|
|
| Dan |
quote:
glencar wrote:
Your point?
Shouldn't be that difficult for you to figure it out. |
| 29th December 2006 06:54 PM |
|
|
| Taptrick |
I do see it at times. When I hear a story, I'm usually thinking, "why don't that mention this or that." I do like the show by those two brothers that talk about cars.
[Edited by Taptrick] |
| 29th December 2006 07:48 PM |
|
|
| Riffhard |
Hmmm,let's see here. An example of NPR and PBS's liberal slant,huh? Well just for starters have you ever heard of Bill Moyers?! That fucktard is left of Karl Marx! He has since retired,but he's still featured on both of those news outlets pretty regularly as a guest. When he was still gainfully employed by PBS he made millions on that non-profit network by pimping his far left kooky books,and his puplic appearances. He also never once tired of slamming the United States at every turn,and,of course,any and all conservatives. Fuck him,and fuck NPR and PBS. There are many more examples of the oh-so-obvious slant,but liberals never see a slant if it goes their way.
Riffy |
|
