WP: On Iraq, U.S. Turns to Onetime Dissenters

[kskiska]

Sunday, January 14, 2007; A01

First of an occasional series

Timothy M. Carney went to Baghdad in April 2003 to run Iraq's Ministry of Industry and Minerals. Unlike many of his compatriots in the Green Zone, the rangy, retired American ambassador wasn't fazed by chaos. He'd been in Saigon during the Tet Offensive, Phnom Penh as it was falling to the Khmer Rouge and Mogadishu in the throes of Somalia's civil war. Once he received his Halliburton-issued Chevrolet Suburban, he disregarded security edicts and drove around Baghdad without a military escort. His mission, as he put it, "was to listen to the Iraqis and work with them."

He left after two months, disgusted and disillusioned. The U.S. occupation administration in Iraq, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), placed ideology over pragmatism, he believed. His boss, viceroy L. Paul Bremer, refused to pay for repairs needed to reopen many looted state-owned factories, even though they had employed tens of thousands of Iraqis. Carney spent his days screening workers for ties to the Baath Party.

"Planning was bad," he wrote in his diary on May 8, "but implementation is worse."

When he returned to Washington, he made little secret of his views. They were so scathing that his wife lost a government contract. He figured his days of working on Iraq were over.

Until a phone call on Tuesday.

David Satterfield, the State Department's Iraq coordinator, was on the line with a question: Would Carney be willing to go back to Baghdad as the overall coordinator of the American reconstruction effort?

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/13/AR2007011301372.html

[bemildred]

1. Fool me once ... nt

[VegasWolf]

2. Good! He sounds like the kind of guy they need there. RumFilled and Cheney got rid of a lot

of really good people because they possessed a different opinion than Drunk and Drunker.

[Dover]

3. They shoot horses don't they?....

At a time when Bushco seems to be eliminating all but his most loyal subjects...look those gift horses in the mouth.

[IndianaGreen]

4. Too little, too late!

This war was lost a long time ago. We are still in denial, bipartisan denial at that.

[Miss Chybil]

5. I had to click on four intra-DU links to get to this topic.

That's how many times it has been locked and moved. Ridiculous. Anyway... now, I'm going to Recommend it.

On edit... but I can't recommend it because it's more than 24 hours old. I think the mods got a little carried away with this one.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2689633

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=2688821

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=2688127

[uppityperson]

6. me too, wondering if it was going to start linking back upon itself.