Stunning New Book from Iraqi Government Insider Illustrates Blunders, Ignorance

An Iraqi official who has served as Iraq's trade, defense, and finance minister at various times since 2003 has written a book about his country's four years under the American occupation ("The Occupation of Iraq," published by Yale University Press). According to the AP, it is a detached and nonpartisan look at the United States' and Iraqi government's failings.

Ali Allawi, cousin to former Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, was educated in the United States and Britain and demonstrates no preference for the Sunni or Shiite sects within Iraqi society and its badly divided government (he belongs to a secularist political party). He slams a lot of people, but most of all the Americans.

Snippets of Allawi's book, from the AP:

"The corroded and corrupt state of Saddam was replaced by the corroded, inefficient, incompetent and corrupt state of the new order."

First came the "monumental ignorance" of those in Washington pushing for war in 2002 without "the faintest idea" of Iraq's realities. "More perceptive people knew instinctively that the invasion of Iraq would open up the great fissures in Iraqi society," he writes.

What followed was the "rank amateurism and swaggering arrogance" of the occupation, under L. Paul Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), which took big steps with little consultation with Iraqis, steps Allawi and many others see as blunders.

The lies that led to war and the missteps after the invasion that led to failure are all documented in the Mother Jones Iraq War Timeline.

On U.S. reconstruction failures — in electricity, health care and other areas documented by Washington's own auditors — Allawi writes that the Americans' "insipid retelling of 'success' stories" merely hid "the huge black hole that lay underneath."

There have been a lot of great books about the Iraq War, from Ron Suskind to Thomas Ricks to Michael Gordon to Rajiv Chandrasekaran. Now it looks like there is an Iraqi equivalent.

Comments

Hmmm. I think I know the plot to this one already as it's not the first book of it's kind- America screwed up, they didn't plan correctly, underestimated, all America's fault. Sounds like money well spent. The perfect downer book for summer! Oh, and Mr. Stein- please don't delete my postings. It's okay to have differing opinions.

Posted by: Bethany on 04/09/07 at 12:59 PM Respond

Bethany - for the record, none of the editors moderate their own blogs on Mother Jones.

And the only items we delete are those that include hate speech, those laden with profanity, those which include ad hominem attacks (replying to an argument by attacking the person making the argument, rather than by addressing the substance of the argument), and those which attempt to be deliberately inflammatory or provocative.

Differing opinions are not only fine - it's what we prefer. Thanks for participating!

Posted by: Bruce on 04/09/07 at 1:53 PM Respond

I wonder if there is any new information in this book. As the article above mentions, the allegations have already been well documented in other books. So far it seems the only novelty comes in the authors nationality.

Posted by: Bob on 04/09/07 at 4:35 PM Respond

Yes, it seems so. The 'New World Order' that daddy Bush and babby shrub both spoke about is truly upon us and their seems to be no way of stopping it or even learning anything about it other than the most global details which are that it's main component is world domination by the US and our military- industrial-wealty-republican-big religion(catholic, my religion, and evangelical fundie)complex.

Posted by: Bob DAmico on 04/10/07 at 12:35 PM Respond

While the broad outline may be the same as that of other books, the perspective and many details are likely to be different. Personal experience of your own country is always different than research, no matter how well done.

Posted by: Helen on 04/11/07 at 1:35 AM Respond