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| Government Departments at War Over How to Help Iraq |
| 2007-03-11 |
| As violence in Iraq crescendoed an admission that it's less, now? last year, President Bush summoned his secretaries of agriculture, commerce and energy to Camp David in June to meet with his national security team. During a two-hour afternoon discussion in the main lodge, the president urged the three secretaries to become more involved in the Iraq reconstruction effort. When Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez got back to his office, he asked his staff members to develop a list of Iraq-related projects for the agency. They did, and two months later, they shared it with the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, expecting that diplomats on the ground would welcome a little help from Washington. Instead, the document, "Secretary Gutierrez's Five Priority Areas for Economic Reform in Iraq," set off a bureaucratic grenade in Baghdad's Green Zone. The second item on the list called for the United States to pressure Iraq's government to cease providing people with monthly food rations, which more than half of Iraq's population relies on for sustenance. Embassy officials were incensed. Although the embassy's economists favored changes to the ration system, they believed that dismantling it as Commerce was proposing could spark riots that might topple the Iraqi government. "Commerce was stunningly naive," said a senior State Department official involved in Iraq policy. "They were way out of their lane." Another example of Bush's Faults. This is just the first half-page of five pages of WaPo excitement! The rest is at the link. |
| Posted by:Bobby |
| #5 From the department of pedantry - "crescendoed" would mean the increase has stopped, but doesn't imply a subsequent reduction. In music, you can have a crescendo to a higher but stable volume. |
| Posted by: Bill Hupomotch5634 2007-03-11 15:19 |
| #4 Very good point, Procopius. "Defeating" the various enemies in Iraq wasn't/isn't as clear and linear as it was in Germany and Japan, but the underlying concept remains valid. Don't have deep detailed knowledge on the economic policy side, but do know that many in the embassy's rotating cast of econ advisers also favored removing subsidies and other distortions ASAP - the "P" taking into account political reality, of course. And gasoline was de-regulated. Part was hindsight - part wasn't - but I agreed with several others at the embassy that one of the biggest mistakes made by CPA was to not de-regulate gas/fuel prices immediately, during the early post-invasion shock/honeymoon period. The distortions of fuel prices were perhaps the chief economic basis for the growth of organized crime (this includes much of what is considered Tater Tot's "network" in the south) through smuggling operations. These criminal groups either double as troublesome "political" groups or continue as criminal outfits, in both cases forming a major part of the security challenge. This stuff is harder than it looks, and I don't casually trash CPA for mistakes that were apparent only/mostly in the rear view mirror, but some (like this one) were pretty clear at the time, based on common sense. Wars are tests of will, and market logic cannot/should not be thwarted - if you only had two base concepts of operations, those would do nicely ..... |
| Posted by: Verlaine 2007-03-11 13:59 |
| #3 I thought the headline would be "State Department Trying to Decide how to Destroy Iraq". Al |
| Posted by: Frozen Al 2007-03-11 13:05 |
| #2 As far as Baghdad goes, there is little alternative but to enable ethnic division. Sunni enclaves north of the Tigris have already been cleansed. Even al-Qaeda in Iraq won't touch an American soldier, south of the river, because they fear the Shiites more. Defense briefings reveal relatively easy operations by US troops in Al-Sadr City and other Shiite strongholds. Troops have been doing some safe escort work with civilians, which will increase public confidence. Civilian deaths from the conflict in Baghdad have dropped dramatically since the new tactics began. The Dems were off base in attacking positive administration statements on the operations. |
| Posted by: Sneaze 2007-03-11 12:43 |
| #1 It's also a fall out of trying to rebuild a country before you defeat it. American forces in Germany and Japan had pretty much a clean slate to deal with and a population that knew that dead enders would only bring even more grief and not rewards. What's happening to the Sunni Baathist neighborhoods should have happened over two years ago. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2007-03-11 10:22 |