Nick Confessore channels Peter Galbraith:
Posted by DeLong at September 9, 2004 01:49 PMTAPPED: September 2004 Archives: The Bush administration's recruitment of staff for the CPA is one of the great scandals of the American occupation, although it has so far received little attention from the press. Republican political connections counted for far more than professional competence, relevant international experience, or knowledge of Iraq. In May, The Washington Post ran an account of three young people recruited for service in the CPA by e-mail, without interviews, security clearances, or relevant experience. They ended up responsible for spending Iraq's budget; because they knew little about the country or about financial procedures, they did so slowly. The failure to spend money was of course the source of enormous frustration to jobless Iraqis and undoubtedly produced recruits for the insurgency. According to the Post, the threesome, who included the daughter of a prominent conservative activist, had never applied to go to Iraq and could not figure out how they were selected. Finally they realized that the one thing they had in common was that they had applied for jobs at the conservative Heritage Foundation, which had kept their resumes on file.
In some cases, the quest for political loyalists meant dismissing qualified professionals who had already been recruited. In the June 20 Chicago Tribune, the reporter Andy Zajac described how, in April of 2003, the Bush administration replaced the chief CPA health official, Dr. Frederick Burkle, a medical doctor with close working relationships with humanitarian organizations and long experience in conflict zones, with James Haveman, a political crony of Michigan's Republican former governor. Unlike Dr. Burkle, who for months had been planning the restoration of Iraq's health care system and who was ready to put a program in action as soon as Baghdad fell, Haveman did not arrive in Iraq until June 7, 2003. Although he had never worked in a post-conflict environment, Haveman strongly denied that he lacked international experience, apparently considering his travel to twenty-six foreign countries (as he told the Chicago Tribune) a relevant qualification.
The privatizing of Iraq's economy was handled at first by Thomas Foley, a top Bush fund-raiser, and then by Michael Fleisher, brother of President Bush's first press secretary. After explaining that he had got the job in Iraq through his brother Ari, he told the Chicago Tribune—without any apparent sense of irony—that the Americans were going to teach the Iraqis a new way of doing business. "The only paradigm they know is cronyism."
Once againe,
You just can't make this shit up!!!
Is it any wonder that Michael Moore will have over another hour to add to the dvd version of Fahrenheit 911. I hear alot of it will have to doe with the suffering in Iraq.
Posted by: llamajockey at September 9, 2004 03:15 PMI read the NYRB article. Once again, Galbraith is the only person out there with a feasible exit strategy for Iraq. I wish Kerry could openly embrace his views. You can't make an Iraqi nation without Iraqis. However you may be able to issure that the Shites, Sunnis and Kurds each have the space so they do not kill each other.
Posted by: llamajockey at September 9, 2004 04:16 PMThis is of a piece with firing Arabic language translators because they are gay. Politics is the beginning and end of all decision-making.
I would like for someone who supports Bush on national security grounds to explain why these sorts of personnel policies don't seriously weaken us.
Posted by: Bernard Yomtov at September 9, 2004 04:24 PMCome on, Brad, the big city Democrat machines perfected cronyism. Your son needs a job, you bribe the alderman, and your kid gets a tax-paid job holding a shovel on some union work site.
Unions and Democratic machines are notorious. Look at the what, $10BILLION Big Dig in Boston.
As for replacing qualified people with cronies, I've seen that happen all my professional life.
The Republicans hardly invented the crony game.
"Come on, Brad, the big city Democrat machines perfected cronyism."
Well, it's your country now. You tell me if the problem's getting better or worse.
Posted by: Dragonchild at September 9, 2004 09:33 PM>This is of a piece with firing Arabic language translators because they are gay. Politics is the beginning and end of all decision-making.
Or even better: Not hire Middle East experts because they speak Arabic, as evidenced here:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story?id=6450422
"Over at Defense, competent intelligence professionals were purged in order to ease the way to war. Douglas Feith, brought in under Rumsfeld to serve as undersecretary of defense for policy, applied an ideological test to his staff: He didn't want competence; he wanted fervor. Col. Pat Lang, a Middle East expert who served under five presidents, Republican and Democratic, in key posts in military intelligence, recalls being considered for a job at the Pentagon. During the job interview, Feith scanned Lang's impressive resume. "I see you speak Arabic," Feith said. When Lang nodded, Feith said, "Too bad," and dismissed him."
Aaaaaaaarrrrgh!
The NY Review of Books piece by Peter Galbraith is a must read. It's an excellent look at the dynamics of the Iraq situation from a historical perspective. The cronyism angle is but a small part of the larger piece. I'll bet lots of people will be surprised to know that Prime Minister Allawi hadn't been in Iraq in 35 years.
Posted by: Jon at September 10, 2004 08:32 AM"Come on, Brad, the big city Democrat machines perfected cronyism."
I'm not sure cronyism, per se, is the main problem. The main problem is using ideology as the litmus test in selecting personnel, with experience and competence ranking distant 2nd and 3rd.
Continuing on this point, check this out from the same article:
"Haveman, according to the Tribune, ignored Iraq's private health care system (which meets half the country's needs) and wasted huge amounts of money by refusing to collect data on the existing clinics."
Puts a new perspective on all the hospitals getting built and painted.
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