Ugly CPA autopsies

Last month I posted about the ideological litmus tests that were applied in hiring for the Coalitional Provisional Authority. I said at the end that, “This is a story crying out for further investigation.” Today the Washington Post (link via Matthew Yglesias) and Chicago Tribune both have front-page stories focusing on the CPA — and this issue comes up in both articles. In the Post, Rajiv Chandrasekaran paints an ugly picture of poor planning and inadequate resources. As for recruitment, Chandrasekaran observes:

On the eve of its dissolution, the CPA has become a symbol of American failure in the eyes of most Iraqis. In a recent poll sponsored by the U.S. government, 85 percent of respondents said they lacked confidence in the CPA. The criticism is echoed by some Americans working in the occupation. They fault CPA staffers who were fervent backers of the invasion and of the Bush administration, but who lacked reconstruction skills and Middle East experience. Only a handful spoke Arabic. Within the marble-walled palace of the CPA’s headquarters inside Baghdad’s protected Green Zone, there is an aching sense of a mission unaccomplished. “Did we really do what we needed to do? What we promised to do?” a senior CPA official said. “Nobody here believes that.”…. The CPA also lacked experienced staff. A few development specialists were recruited from the State Department and nongovernmental organizations. But most CPA hiring was done by the White House and Pentagon personnel offices, with posts going to people with connections to the Bush administration or the Republican Party. The job of reorganizing Baghdad’s stock exchange, which has not reopened, was given in September to a 24-year-old who had sought a job at the White House. “It was loyalty over experience,” a senior CPA official said…. Instead of building contacts at social events in the city, CIA operatives in Baghdad drink in their own rattan-furnished bar in the Green Zone. Instead of prowling local markets, CPA employees go to the Green Zone Shopping Bazaar, where the most popular items are Saddam Hussein memorabilia. Limited contact with Iraqis outside the Green Zone has made CPA officials reliant on the views of those chosen by Bremer to serve on the Governing Council. When Brahimi, the U.N. envoy, asked the CPA for details about several Iraqis he was considering for positions in the interim government, he told associates he was “shocked to find how little information they really had,” according to an official who was present.

In the Tribune, Andrew Zajac focuses more closely on the recruitment of CPA personnel. Again, not a pretty picture:

Although many CPA posts have been held by career government civil servants, numerous crucial slots have been filled by officials with strong GOP or conservative pedigrees. Passed over, in some cases, were diplomats and foreign policy specialists with backgrounds in Middle East issues or nation-building…. Without question the coalition took on arduous and sometimes dangerous assignments. The difficult working conditions likely shrank the pool of talent willing to trade the comfortable routine of American life for months of austerity in a scorching desert climate amid a bloody insurgency. But already even some supporters of the March 2003 invasion of Iraq say the occupation’s troubled course and the country’s uncertain prospects for stable self-rule can be traced at least in part to a leadership team that valued political credentials over foreign policy expertise. Occupation planners often selected “ideologues without international experience who see the world through blinders,” said Peter Galbraith, a senior career diplomat and an adviser to the Iraqi Kurdish leadership. “I don’t think the Iraq venture was doomed to fail,” Galbraith said. “If we had had qualified people with time to plan and a coherent strategy, the situation . . . would certainly be better.”

Read both pieces. It’s still worth keeping in mind that despite these missteps, the situation in Iraq is still not hopeless. Go check out this Council on Foreign Relations backgrounder on the Iraqi economy, compiled by Esther Pan. The final paragraph:

What are the economic forecasts for next year? Very promising, experts say—if the security situation is brought under control. Iraq’s economy had been declining for years as a result of international sanctions against Saddam Hussein’s regime. In 2003, the war and subsequent looting caused the economy to shrink by 22 percent. But the economy is projected to grow by 45 percent in 2005 and 25 percent in 2006, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit, a financial research division of The Economist. “I think the economy is very positive,” [CPA’s acting director of private sector development in New York Richard] Greco says. “There continues to be a steady stream of interest from international investors, not just in oil, but also the agriculture, petrochemical, glass and cement industries. There’s so much potential.”