Of course, most of the experts on the Middle East and nation building opposed the war. The phrase I heard most often in late 2002 and early 2003 was "they (the Administration in general, particularly the Pentagon and White House staff) have no idea what they are getting into." Many experts DID know what we were getting into and from the beginning were reluctant to get involved. In those heady triumphal early days, I'm sure that many thought the doubters had been proven wrong. At the critical juncture they were LESS inclined to listen to advice from the naysayers.

It was eerily like watching the twentysomethings who thought the knew how to run internet companies a few years earlier. Early success made them impervious to criticism and dismissive of advice. It was a new paradigm and the old rules did not apply. The results were more or less the same.

First comment: thank you for not simply copy/pasting from the book. And if you respond to comments, you'll be vying for the TPMCafe Best.Guest.Ever award with Wes Clark and the few others who actually responded...

Second comment: what you described is criminal. Not just incompetent, but criminal. The Iraqi people, let alone our nation, deserved much better.

Dissent Protects Democracy.

I think our efforts in Iraq were doomed to failure when it was in the planning stages.  The key was to get UN/global support for removing Saddam.  We (and the British) decided to act unilaterally with neither country being willing to make the requisite effort needed in terms of man power and resources.

The only way to get Iraq "right" is to get the rest of the world involved.  And I have grave doubts that the rest of the world wants to get involved or we want the rest of the world involved.

Cronyism, a partisan political agenda and profiteering by US multinationals in rebuilding Iraq stand in the way of building a stable government in Iraq.  And I see no indications Bush has any resolve to remove those obstacles.  Until the US starts pursuing policies which are in the best interests of Iraq, instead of the US, the situation in Iraq will not improve.

Something has struck me in the recent reporting, the last couple months, that says "point of no return" for the country of Iraq, U.S. involved or not. Previously, one could always talk theoretical "pie in the sky" stuff like "what if an Arab force was put in there instead of the U.S.?" The point of no return is that everyone that has any means of leaving Iraq seems to have done so, or is planning to do so, and the young dream of doing so. Of course, I am using the many anecdotals I see in the reporting, and I have no figures. But if true, that's a no brainer, equals failed state, no matter what. The Kurdish areas are the only ones that have a chance because people actually still have dreams? You can even survive a civil war if a mixture of classes and education levels of people want to stay and believe in the country, the U.S. is an example.

I think many in the press (and the Democratic Party) were intimidated by Bush's high poll numbers also.

Tom

Rajiv, please define what you mean by pull it off?

Regime Change

Rebuild the infrastructure that Saddam had left to rot

Representative, constitutional government

Acceptance of "universal values" such as equal treatment of women

Democracy

Secular control

Transformation of the Middle East, Road to through ...

I'm just sick of the press's bullshit. They act as though they had no responsibility in this - a fifteen minute conversation with Bremer and this guy becomes a true believer - and so unmindful of the stupidity of it, that he makes it public. And these are the people on whom we depend to tell us the truth - taken in by con men and wishful thinking.

"Daunting challenges?" These were criminal acts perpetrated on a nation and its people.

Great Post, Rajiv.

Now my observation. The Communist Party hierarchy of the USSR promoted people in government based on their adherence to Communist ideology rather than their demonstrated expertise. I learned of this problem by reading U.S. evaluations of the effectiveness of organizational motivation techniques of the Soviet military.

Remember that in the USSR the Party was separate from the government, but the Party approved all promotions. In the U.S. promotions in the government were a government function, not a party function.

This was (in my opinion) a major reason for the collapse of the USSR. I believe that promotion based on ideological purity rather than technical competence was a major reason for the failure of the Soviet government to be able to effectively control a modern industrial state. An organization (government, corporate or non-profit) gets from its employees what it rewards, and fails to get what it fails to reward. Reward comptence, you get competence. Reward ideological purity, you get ideologican purity.

Apparently the American anti-Communist conservatives learned a lot from their soviet enemies during the Cold War. In this case, they seem to have learned how to fail in staffing and managing organizations.

I remember the last orderly withdrawal of troops - the last marine scrambling up a rope ladder into a helicopter while Vietnamese tried to break open the roof door. Of course these are the same arrogant morons that engineered that debacle.

and we had a strategic and moral obligation to get Iraq back on its feet.

This curious, U.S. exclusive "obligation" has killed enough people in Vietnam, Haiti, Iraq, ...

Americans, you have NO obligations neither strategic (what a moronic expression: "strategic obligation") nor moral to kill people who are very well able to take care of themself.

Well I see something fundamentally wrong with a reporter who becomes a "believer" after a fifteen minute conversation with an administration appointee.

He describes criminal negligence and misfeasance in office, and calls them "daunting challenges".

This guy IS a managing editor of the WaPo. Doesn't this scare you?

Bush came out of the oil production industry. Not refining or distribution, both of which require a great deal of industry expertise for anyone to succeed, but production.

Oil Production is a "Bet your company" industry. You don't need a lot of expertise - you can hire that. What you need is the willingness to bet large sums of (other people's) money to a drilling operation. Win and you are rich. Lose and you are bankrupt - and go on to set up a new company and try again. That is the core culture of the industry.

Bush operates by making decisions based on his intuition. He also does not go back and reevaluate his failures. He doesn't even want to hear about his failures, or he wants to blame someone else.

These are techniques which lead to the best chance of success for individuals in the oil production industry. They also consider the organization needed to accomplish the job of drilling the wells as disposable and unimportant.

A person with that professional background needs to be highly intelligent and very intellecuutally curious to make an effective transition into government. Even then it will be extremely difficult.

In government, the organization operates on routine which is based on very wide social acceptance, and is far from disposable. It is one of the sources of stability for the society that it is central to. Replacing a government organization ususally involves revolution and extreme social disruption.

With his lack of intellectual curiosity and his dependence on making decisions based on intuition (meaning based on his socialization and experience), George W. Bush is a guaranteed failure when being placed in a government top management job. He doesn't have a clue, he doesn't want to hear that he is failing, and he doesn't have the curiosity to determine what is actually going wrong with his decisions. Instead he will want to know who is to blame, because it can't be him.

It really is that simple. Bush is the worst single President America has ever had, and it was totally predictable.

Bill Kristol, anyone at National Review, Marshall Wittmann, the WaPo Ed Bd and David Brooks scare me a helluva lot more.

My point is that it's easy to sit here on a blog and judge. You weren't there.

Certainly there are people in Iraq, then and now, with good intentions. All I think RC is saying is he thought Bremer could have been one of those with good intentions. Turns out he was wrong. But that's what I think he means by "believer."

Perhaps our Guest can clarify. 

Dissent Protects Democracy.

if you respond to comments,

Looking at the thread as of 3:05pm, and putting myself in his shoes, I probably wouldn't. There's a lot of emotional venting (that other members are showing approval of by rating highly,) not much opportunity for civil discussion, not much promise of respectful interchange or of it bearing any fruit. I'd think: they don't like me, why did I bother?

I just read an account of this a few months ago. This slant drilling was a major reason why Hussein invaded Kuwait during the first war. If I read about it, are you telling me that this administration doesn't know about it?

I'm not debating this, I'm telling that this is what is going on.

Frankly, I hope everyone becomes angry and outraged at the corruption, the coverups, the steno reporting, the cronyism, the theft, the lies, the hypocrisy, the selfish disdain for others and the barefaced greed in this country.

I am not saying there aren't emotionally charged replies (I have no problem with passion either) on this thread but for the most part the discourse is civil and worthy of responses...so I am hoping he does.

Wouldn't be the first reporter we scared away. But I hope he's got some thicker skin than that...and the discussion's been pretty civil so far. No one's called me a rascist Marxist yet.

Dissent Protects Democracy.

Yes, it's easy to sit here and judge - any sentient person could have told him that this wasn't going to work, a few people even said so before the invasion.

This reporter knew that Bremer didn't have enough troops, that there were not enough resources and there was no comprehensive plan - did he not read his own newspaper?

What is wrong with this country that people accept this kind of incompetence from the media? Would you accept this from a doctor or a lawyer?

"Well, soandso, I talked to the doctor and it seems that while he didn't have an operating room, or instruments or any nurses or any xrays, he had the best of intentions in operating on your now deceased loved one. While you might think he's negligent and his action criminal, I talked with him for fifteen minutes and I believe these weren't criminal acts, they were daunting challenges. There's no need to investigate what he said, he was very convincing."

"I'm very hopeful that the next person he operates on will live."

I think your point about Bush/Cheney/neocons living in the past is a good one Gettysburg.

My only comment is I wish Bush was more like TR in the "Speak softly and carry a big stick" way.  Bush is more like "Yell at the top of your lungs and whack people over the head with a big stick". ;-)

Yeah. It's almost as if he's attempting to play baseball with a plastic bat.

...I asked the questions above because I did not understand Rajiv's starting point but  then I also spoke in an equally cryptic manner. Let me start again.

Rajiv I want to understand what you meant by pull it off so I can understand and comment on what follows.

I begin with the fact that we were there in Baghdad on April 9th, 2003 -- and we had a strategic and moral obligation to get Iraq back on its feet.

So, it is okay to critique the reconstruction but questioning the reasons for invading in the first place isn’t useful? That does kind of let the media off the hook, doesn’t it? The problem is that this was a “pre-emptive” invasion. The media spin was that this preventive war (without a tangibly imminent threat) was not an illegal radical change in policy and was not even that unusual. But the fact that this was an invasion of a country that was not actually threatening us requires that we examine how we got into this war and that means looking at a media that was complicit in selling this war to the American people. That is why your uncritical “faith” in Paul Bremer after a 15 minute interview should be questioned.

The problem is not in the execution of the war in Iraq, the problem is in the very idea itself.

Preemptive war, invading Arab countries, trying to establish secular democracies in countries that seem to want more religious involvment in government. For all those reasons and more, it was a terrible idea and never had a chance of success. If we convince ourselves otherwise, we are more likely to try it again saying "this time we'll do it right".

Admittedly, Bush seems to have made bad judgments at every turn but the only one that really mattered was deciding to invade in the first place.

I've done some major home remodeling, and there were certain things that I knew I didn't know, such as concrete foundation work. I did do the electrical and signal wiring, some of the plumbing, and some framing.

So, it is okay to critique the reconstruction but questioning the reasons for invading in the first place isn’t useful?

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

BevD - It scares me.

It's obvious that the television media are basically megaphones. On the other hand, print media are supposed to be filters, devices that get rid of impurities. Any reporter who does not approach a subject with at least a modicum of DISBELIEF will ever realize that he needs to filter what he is being told.

Too many reporters, too many times in the lead up to this tragic Iraq debacle have "believed" what they were told. In doing so, they have rendered themselves not only useless but propagaters of false information.

So, it is okay to critique the reconstruction but questioning the reasons for invading in the first place isn’t useful? That does kind of let the media off the hook, doesn’t it?

When the decision to invade Iraq was made, there was some possibility that it could be done effectively. I will admit that I had some hope it would work. But when Lt. Gen. (Ret) Jay Garner was abruptly removed and replaced by Jerry Bremer six weeks into the invasion, I lost all hope.

What Rajive Chandrasekaran is writing about is the total incompetence with which the actual implementation of the invasion decision was conducted. He does not go beyond his data. He does not explain the replacement of Garner (something I am still looking for) nor does he focus on the decision to invade in the first place (somethiing which he has no reason to know, and which is going to be covered in numerous other books and articles.)

I'm just happy to get this rather limited but quite clear explanation of the strange but typically conservative method of making a disaster out of a problem.

The failure of the Bush administration is a general failure of both Bush/Cheney and of the right-wing Republican party. No single book will ever encompass how total their failure really is. Take this one for what it is. Rajive has done a good job of describing the idiocy of right-wing administration of Iraq.

There is a lot more of the right-wing idiocy to be described, and it will take a lot more than one book to describe it.

I'd like to see someone catalogue all the failures, and then refer to the specific books and investigations which describe each element of the failure. It will take an equivalent of an encyclopedia to cover it all. No single book and no single author will ever do it.

I suspect that his critics here would consider themselves among those wishing them spread most widely.

Bingo. Well said. 

Dissent Protects Democracy.

I disagree. In many cases the way a manager deals with a problem is simply to make a decision, then beat it into shape as it runs into problems. A really bad decision can sometimes be made to work if the managers will consider their actions as experiements and learn from their failures.

This is not possible for an ideologue. When an ideologue makes a decision and it fails, the solution is to redouble the effort to apply the ideology. This is not an experimental method. It starts with assuming the answer is known, and the failures to achieve success are failures of the person who attempts to change things.

A good manager starts by getting all the possible information, then making a decision and starting to act. But at this point, all actions change the situation and become experiments. When they fail they provide new informatino and require a new decision. A good manager will recognize this and make new decisions not limited by the ideology with which they started.

Theory is always less important than facts. Always. But an ideologue will be bound by the theory, so the solution for the ideologue is to either redouble the effort or replace the manager. (Why was Jay Garner replaced? No one has ever said.) Conservatives are, by definition, ideologues.

Why was Lt. Gen. Jay Garner replaced by Jerry Bremer less than six weeks into the occupation of Iraq? Garner was not an ideologue. Bremer was.

There were a lot more bad decisions made than just the one to invade Iraq. In fact, if you want to know what decisions are bad, just look at every decision that the Bush administration has made since 2001. They have made effective decisions only by accident.

The sub-thread was about hoping to get the writer to reply to comments. People are criticizing his career "product" and expecting him to reply. I think that's like inviting him to fight to defend his product. Maybe he's not interested in fighting, doesn't find it productive. (Also, it's also clear that such people are not interested in buying his book, it would be a hard sell.) Look, I'm talking simple psychology, how to get a conversation going. Sometimes forums get so venty/ranty that people think everyone is like that, that everyone wants to rant and fight. Everyone's not like that, we don't all enjoy that game.

There's better ways to go about introducing the topic you mention (i.e., have you learned anything from that? have you changed your reporting technique since that?) Think like you were meeting him in person, in a coffee shop. How would you initiate a conversation? If you started yelling at him like a protestor about things he wrote that you read, wouldn't he be smart to just walk away from you? Responding to emotional, angry people is just not wise in many cases. What is it you expect? In retail you say "I'm sorry" and then just listen, because you have to be there and deal with it. He doesn't have to be here, you have to entice him to reply, just like any other person here. Would you think it interesting for him to say "I'm sorry" over and over? That's an interesting reply?

In the same vein, I've never seen a writer responding to a bad review come out of it looking good, they always look pitiful; better to remain silent.

=== Sometimes forums get so venty/ranty ===

I have been hearing that word "vent" since I was about 11 years old (a looong time ago), and I regret to admit I have never understood what it is supposed to mean. _I_ argue forcefully for deeply thought-out positions based on superior understanding; _you_ vent.

I understand your point; I really do (although I noticed you neatly sideslipped my question as to whether the clerk who sells inferior goods bears any responsibility for working there). I am not sure that committing the United States to a war that had the potential to knock it out of Great Power status forever was really the right venue for credulous reporting though. And reporters above anyone should be vaccinated against the power of charisma and charismatic people.

sPh

I'm curious as to how Rajiv Chandrasekaran would respond to Dan Senor's op-ed in the Washington Post today. He argues that the top levels of the CPA were staffed with experts, even if the lower level positions were not. The failure, Senor contends, reflects the difficulty of the task, not the lack of relevant talent and expertise.

Not knowing Rajiv was going to be here today (I never read the advertising), I had caught the Si Senor? piece in the Washington Post today. I also wrote an entry in my blog, Logical Consequences, on this website.

I'm not Rajiv, but perhaps you'll find my take - and some of the background on Si Senor? - to be interesting and give you a better idea on how his WaPo piece was "framed."

Yes. If you read Fallows article in the Atlantic from fall 2002, in which he follows his usual procedure of talking with everyone who might know anything about the subject, he essentially predicted everything that has come to pass in Iraq.

How did he know...and not everyone else in the media?

But it's also true that the people didn't rise up in protest...much. There was a huge desire to believe that things were going to "work out."

When you consider the scale and cost of this disaster, it's hard to believe, but there it is.

I think commenters are criticizing the media in general and not attacking Rajiv personally. I understand that he is discussing his book here and I, too, thank him for posting. But discussion shouldn't be limited to only what is in his book. Rajiv is a reporter and editor in Iraq for a major newspaper that had a lot of influence on the path to Iraq.

I really do appreciate his exposing of this cronyism=incompetence that was part of the failure there. The cravenness of these political appointments is incredible, even for these guys. But why wasn’t this reported on before now? Why weren’t facts like this used to refute the lies, day after day after day for two years, about how great things were going in Iraq.

My only point above was that the blind faith in Bremer that the author describes is a continuation of the uncritical media “reporting” that took us there in the first place, and it is justifiable to discuss it in those terms. I like the idea of the encyclopedia of failures (maybe in volumes A to Z).

There were a lot more bad decisions made than just the one to invade Iraq. In fact, if you want to know what decisions are bad, just look at every decision that the Bush administration has made since 2001.

I agree, but to Bush they aren't "bad decisions." Has he ever admitted to being wrong....to making a mistake? He's always "staying the course"; good times are just around the corner.

artappraiser. Your retail examples are not helpful as far as they go. A pro-active approach in dealing with an angry customer is far more preferable than the behavior you describe. Your response(s) tend to make matters worse as the customer perceives them as proforma at best and passive-aggressive at worst. The customer gets even more frustrated by this type of non-response.

I'd like to hear a response to Mr. Campbell Brown, i.e. Dan Senor, who had a piece in WaPo today.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/09/AR2006100901036.html

He basically does the opposite of what you do, which is cite a few very qualified people who worked for the CPA and suggest that only a few people were in over their heads.

Do you think a few bad apples spoiled the whole bunch, or were a few incompetents inevitable, as Senor suggests?

He also accuses you of shifting opinions on what should be done in Iraq.

Also, do you really think it made any difference, and that there was really a possible plan that would have worked in Iraq? In hindsight, I think it's very hard to see how even the best possible plan, executed flawlessly, would have worked in the end.

Senor is a hack, totally compromised by his connections.

See Mark Raven's blog.

For Bush's Brain, Karl Rove, and the Cheney administration, 'pulling it off' clearly meant kicking Democratic butt. War President. Mission accomplished on that score in 2004.

In a weird way I am fascinated by the psychological disposition of the legions of smart, educated liberals who believed we could "pull it off."

To me it was always completely obvious this could never work. I wish I could say "Man, that was some insight, wasn't it?" But I take no pride -- not because pride would be a misplaced feeling under the circumstances -- but because my conclusion always struck me as so embarrassingly obvious: like stating that 2+2 is 4.

And I debated with people who would say: But what about Japan, what about Germany? We pulled it off then! And I wondered to myself: how can those smart people be suddendly so stupid.
I had never witnessed such depletion of collective IQ in my life!

Why? I am only interested in people who meant well (like Rajiv). Not the Ledeens, Rummy, and sundry racist jerks who believe whatever crap fits their agenda.

Many good people believed that we could "pull it off." Why?

Why did the US elite got so dumb?

9//11? Panic attacks? Self-admiration? Plain hubris?

Now people apologize for being wrong. No! Everyone can be wrong without being stupid. Marxists were wrong but they were not stupid.

They should apologize for having been so incredibly stupid. And that's a little tougher to forgive.