GOP Loyalty Dictated Who Would Rebuild Iraq
Remember this? An excellent synopsis of the grotesque level of corruption and nepotism involved in the corporate looting spree we know of as “Iraq Reconstruction Policy”. This is the stuff we at USTV were railing about on our program back in 2003.
This article was first published in the Washington Post and comes via the Seattle Times, and is written by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, the author of the highly recommended book “Imperial Life In The Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone”.
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 professionals, Arabic-speaking academics, development specialists and war-zone adventurers. But they had to get past Jim O’Beirne’s Pentagon office before going to Baghdad.
To pass muster with O’Beirne, a political appointee, applicants didn’t need to be experts in the Middle East or in postconflict reconstruction. They did need, however, to be a member of the Republican Party.
They don’t call it the ‘green’ zone for nothing.
And if any of you have not read Col. Pat Lang’s excellent “Drinking the Kool Aid”, you owe it to yourself. And if you have, it’s worth a revisit.
