Writing of Wrongs

The source of the war's disappointments is the fact that the priorities of liberal hawks such as Packer were different from those of the government. Although it was not unreasonable to suppose that the Bush administration would have prepared for a post-Saddam Iraq, it soon became apparent that it had failed to do so. As the U.S.-led military campaign moved toward its inevitable victory, Packer interviewed prospective members of the U.S. occupation's management team in Iraq. They were kicking their heels, excluded from top-level discussions about what turned out to be the wrong questions anyway (such as how to cope with refugees fleeing urban combat). Still, they attempted to put Iraq back together, working out of the looted shells of government buildings, often relying more on idealism than on relevant experience. One young man divided his time between drafting the Iraqi constitution and filling out applications for law school. U.S. officials dealt warily with the would-be Iraqi politicians (also neophytes and also suspicious of their counterparts) who had materialized from among the ranks of exiles based in the West or from the more enclosed world of local clerics. Many of the Iraqis Packer met were hostile; others were waiting, incredulously, for the all-conquering Americans to turn on the electricity, get the water to run, fix buildings, and keep the streets safe.

A telling moment involves the hapless retired Lieutenant General Jay Garner, head of the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA). On April 28, 2003, Garner stood before 350 Iraqis in the Baghdad Convention Center, after Makiya had told the skeptical crowd that Iraq needed a liberal constitution. "Who's in charge of our politics?" someone asked Garner. "You're in charge," he replied, prompting, Packer reports, an "audible gasp in the room." No one was in charge, and the Americans had no idea what to do next.

Meanwhile, the Americans were also frustrated and waiting for the political lights to come on. They criticized the Iraqis for their lack of gratitude and initiative and deplored their inability to rise to the challenge of this great reconstruction project. U.S. soldiers complained bitterly about the unreliability and irrationality of the people they had come to help, some of whom squabbled among themselves or connived with insurgents. One outburst sums up the deterioration in relations: "An Iraqi came up to me and said it pisses them off to have to wait for military traffic," a U.S. soldier said to Packer. "I told him, 'If you wouldn't blow us up with car bombs, we'd let you pass us.' Shitheads." If all ends in anarchy, civil war, and a speedy coalition retreat, no doubt a more delicately phrased version of this narrative will become a major part of Washington's political salvage operation.

Packer rejects the idea that the great Iraq project was destined to fail or that the fault for its troubles lies largely with the Iraqis. As evidence that things could have been different, he finds many flickering lights that a better-orchestrated occupation could have turned on. A Christian doctor who once peddled big ideas is now looking to leave the country, exhausted by religious demands about how his family should behave and fearful that armed men might soon challenge his authority at work. A doctor turned translator, who calls himself "Sushi" because he is half-Sunni half-Shiite, has grown sympathetic to the insurgency yet still wants to study journalism in the United States. The chance to vote in the national elections of January 2005 inspired many Iraqis, but so little changed afterward that the impetus was soon lost. The unfolding story of Iraq is a dismal account of dashed hopes, constant frustrations, and growing dangers. "The Iraq War was always winnable; it still is," Packer writes. "For this very reason, the recklessness of its authors is all the harder to forgive."

THE REASONS WHY

All depends, of course, on what the authors of this war were trying to achieve. Not long after the Garner incident at the Baghdad Convention Center, Washington decided that it needed a tougher and savvier operator in Baghdad. It replaced Garner with L. Paul Bremer, and the ORHA with the Coalition Provisional Authority. Bremer knew even less about Iraq than Garner and was given as little time to prepare for his new task as was Garner to get used to his dismissal. A few weeks later, Garner was brought to the White House for a meeting with George W. Bush, bearing a short and upbeat memorandum (to ensure he would be congratulated on a job well done). The cast of characters responsible for the war also attended: Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. Not one of them took the opportunity to ask Garner what the situation in Iraq was really like or whether the country was on the road to stability. As the brief meeting ended, Packer reports, the president joked, "You want to do Iran for the next one?" "No, sir," Garner replied, "me and the boys are holding out for Cuba." The vice president had said nothing, and as Garner left the room, Packer writes, "he caught Cheney's wicked little smile." Garner concluded from the episode that "Bush knew only what Cheney let into his office."