Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone by Rajiv Chandrasekaran

Author:Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Freedom & Security - International Secur, Military - Iraq War (2003-), Political corruption - United States, Middle East, Political Science, Iraq War, United States - Politics and government - 2001-2009, War, Middle East - General, Political Freedom & Security, Iraq War (2003-), Postwar reconstruction - Iraq, History - Military, Iraq, International Relations, Coalition Provisional Authority, Political corruption, United States, Military, History, International Security, United States - Politics and government - 2001, Postwar reconstruction, General, 2003, Politics
ISBN: 9780307278838
Publisher: Random House, Inc.
Published: 2007-09-04T04:00:00+00:00

When the CPA’s bean counters had begun assembling a national budget for Iraq, they discovered that the country’s income, almost all of which came from oil sales, was nowhere near enough to pay for its expenses. Saddam had dealt with the shortfall by withholding funding for ministries, and by not investing in the nation’s infrastructure. Power plants such as Baghdad South never received new parts or upgrades. If the engineers there needed equipment, they often scavenged at the junkyard.

To Bremer, this was unacceptable. Building a stable democracy required a government that could balance its books and meet its obligations to the Iraqi people. Cutting back food and fuel subsidies would save money over the long term, but that wasn’t something the CPA could do right away. Dismantling the safety net could spark unrest.

Bremer also worried about investment in infrastructure. Balancing the budget was only half the problem. He believed that if Iraq’s economy was to flourish, foreign companies would have to invest in factories, oil wells, and mines. Perhaps investors would buy government-run companies as they privatized. Perhaps they would set up operations from scratch. Either way, they would employ thousands upon thousands of people, thereby resuscitating the economy. But before foreign companies would invest, they needed to be certain that their factories would have enough electricity and water. Simply getting back to prewar levels was not enough. Iraq had to produce enough electricity not just to meet the demand of the moment, but also for the power-guzzling factories of its future. The same theory held for security. Far more money was required to train existing police officers and to hire tens of thousands of new ones. The way Bremer saw it, there was no way to defer improvements in Iraq’s security and infrastructure. Electricity was a catalyst in getting the country back on its feet. He hoped that with a modest upfront investment, Iraq would be able to increase oil production and attract enough foreign investment within a few years to balance its books.

David Oliver, the CPA’s budget czar, calculated that Iraq needed to invest between $5 billion and $10 billion a year in its infrastructure, and that wasn’t counting the money required to make up for years of Saddam’s underinvestment. (Needs assessments conducted by the United States, the United Nations, and the World Bank eventually put the figure at $55 billion over four years.) Iraq didn’t have the money. Oil revenue was barely enough to pay for the government’s salaries, supplies, and other operating expenses. Oliver decided that approaching other nations for contributions would take too long. He nixed the idea of loans. Iraq already had tens of billions of dollars in foreign debt. To Oliver, there was only one solution: “The gap had to be filled with American money.”

He went to Bremer, who supported infrastructure investment but didn’t have a sense of how much it would cost until Oliver showed him a spreadsheet. Tens of billions of dollars. Tens of billions of American taxpayer dollars. The sum

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