After the fall of Saddam Hussein's government in April 2003, the opportunity to participate in the U.S.-led effort to reconstruct Iraq attracted all manner of Americans -- restless professionals, Arabic-speaking academics, development specialists and war-zone adventurers. But before they could go to Baghdad, they had to get past Jim O'Beirne's office in the Pentagon.
To pass muster with O'Beirne, a political appointee who screens prospective political appointees for Defense Department posts, applicants didn't need to be experts in the Middle East or in post-conflict reconstruction. What seemed most important was loyalty to the Bush administration.
Read the full article from the Washington Post here.
IAVA's Mike Krause sounds off about this rampant cronyism in the reconstruction of Iraq:
"How We Picked the Wrong Team"
Elementary school gym class taught us that the the composition of your team is critical to success in dodgeball. Everyone lines up in the gym, and one by one, the team captains wield their power, selecting the peers who will most likely lead their teams to dodgeball victory, and the rewards and treasures that accompany such a victory. But team selection is also important in other events. An example of one those events could be, oh, I don't know....occupying a recently-invaded country with porous borders, deep-seated sectarian issues, a corrupt and fragile infrastructure, and nearly universal ownership of automatic weapons.
Yet for some reason, the powers that be decided that the Coalition Provisional Authority, responsible for the reconstruction of the Iraqi nation, decided to staff their offices based not on experience, but rather, allegiance to the GOP. Detailed in Ravi Chandrasekaran's recent article in the Washington Post, as well as in Thomas Ricks' magnificent chronicle, Fiaso, the hiring practices of the CPA have emerged as one of the more catastrophic human resources situations in well....forever. And people say HR is boring.
One example of the problem included recruiting CPA workers based on seeking "résumés from the offices of Republican congressmen, conservative think tanks and GOP activists. He (Jim O'Beirne, DoD official) discarded applications from those his staff deemed ideologically suspect, even if the applicants possessed Arabic language skills or postwar rebuilding experience." (Chandrasekaran) Another CPA hire noted that his favorite job before coming to Iraq and working on the budget for the Iraqi security forces was his time as an "ice cream truck driver" (Ricks, pg. 203). I am certain we can all agree on the applicability of ice cream truck experience to rebuilding a war torn nation.
The bottom line is that like so many other facets of the war in Iraq, this was bungled from the start. I can't guess whether or not a smoothly functioning infrastructure and reliable security and electricity would have prevented the insurgency. One could easily surmise that the Iraqi population would have been far less disillusioned if they weren't dealing with public services far less advanced then during Saddam's tenure. I personally heard the frustrated complaints of Iraqis, as they pleaded for electricity during the scorching summer of 2003, wondering why the American empire who could conquer in mere weeks couldn't stabilize in years.
The team you pick determines the outcome... and we picked the wrong team.
For more from Mike and other Iraq Vets, check out the IAVA Blog.