Imperial Life in the Emerald City Inside Iraq's Green Zone

Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s damning in-depth report on life in Baghdad's Green Zone, the cordoned-off section that was the seat of the U.S. military...more

Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s damning in-depth report on life in Baghdad's Green Zone, the cordoned-off section that was the seat of the U.S. military command as well as of the Coalition Provisional Authority, reveals case after case of a stunningly mismanaged post-invasion occupation. Chandrasekaran looks at a large number of people--military and civilian both--and credits those who tried to help, but also reports stunningly outrageous behavior that is at times inept, at other times offensive. The Coalition Provisional Authority tended to be either intrusive or woefully absent (in restoring Iraq's infrastructure, for example), and was staffed, the author claims, with politically connected people with little interest in Iraqi culture who only made things worse, not better. Chandrasekaran describes a surreal city-within-a-city and an occupying force in a state of collective denial about the realities just outside its perimeter--none of which escaped the notice of the Iraqi population, and which,   less