By Jim Krane (Associated Press)
and Lourdes Navarro (Asia Times)
BAGHDAD - For most of the 600 members of the Coalition Provisional Authority, it is time to go home.
The atmosphere inside Baghdad's sealed-off green zone is festive and frantic, with just days before the outfit that has ruled for 13 months dissolves itself and turns governmental power over to Iraq's new interim regime.
Its tenure has been a mere hiccup in Mesopotamia's 7,000-year history, although one that helped free Iraqis from a cruel dictatorship yet left the country in disarray.
The CPA was built from a staff of mainly young backers of the Bush administration who volunteered for what they believed would be the major event of their lives. They arrived in Iraq with a missionary's zeal.
In large part, the California-sized country has defied their will to shape it.
"There is a lot of introspection at the CPA. A lot of us are asking ourselves, have we done the right thing? Are we doing a good job?" said Josh Paul, a 26-year-old from Washington, D.C., who advises Iraq's Interior Ministry.
The discussions are happening as departing friends visit goodbye parties inside the green zone, a walled section of Baghdad that used to protect Saddam Hussein's government and now safeguards Iraq's occupying powers. Many, such as CPA chief L. Paul Bremer, plan to leave Iraq immediately after the June 30 handover ceremony.
"It's got almost an end-of-school-term feel to it," said Nick Horne, a British adviser to the Electricity Ministry.
As the CPA's Department of Defense workers gird for departure, contractors pour concrete and lay sandbags around buildings housing their successors, the State Department employees of the soon-to-open U.S. Embassy.
About 200 CPA functionaries will keep their jobs at Saddam's colossal palace, Iraq's former seat of power that will be the embassy's annex, to the consternation of many Iraqis.
CPA employees say their lives were stressful and uncomfortable. They spent the year living in tents or stacked in trailer parks with names such as Ocean Cliffs and Poolside Suites. They wait in line to use the bathroom. They put in 12- to 18-hour days punctuated by mortar attacks.
Even small comforts, such as pets, were prohibited.
"The majority are happy to leave. You have no life, no entertainment," said Mounzer Fatfat, CPA's senior adviser for youth and sport. "A lot of people got burned out."
The CPA's reign has been salted with tragedy.
Hilary White, the CPA coordinator in the Shiite Muslim city of Hillah, lost her American roommate, Fern Holland, in March. Rebels in police uniforms stopped Holland's car and killed her, along with Bob Zangas, an ex-Marine working for the CPA, and Salwa Oumashi, Holland's Iraqi deputy.
Still, White said she is proud of her accomplishments, and those of the CPA. She shared tearful goodbyes last week with hundreds of Iraqi friends. A Shiite cleric presented her a gold necklace with a Christian cross.
"I will always cherish the gold cross from my Muslim friend, a symbol that two cultures, two religions and two people have immense respect and admiration for each other," White wrote. "I promised our Iraqi friends that wherever I go, I will be an ambassador for the Shiite heartland."
Some in the CPA feel power is being let go too soon, with too many tasks unfinished. Many observers think the CPA's hard work was undercut by its employees' lack of experience, a focus on Washington's needs over Iraq's, and the lack of a rebuilding plan.
Bad decisions compounded problems. Looters weren't halted from wrecking the country's infrastructure, which doubled or tripled the price of reconstruction, a senior U.S. reconstruction official said.
Bremer's dismissal of the Iraqi army created a security vacuum that guerrillas soon filled. When the insurgency kicked in, the CPA was knocked off balance.
Iraqis also harbored enormous expectations of the Americans. They wanted the country rebuilt right away, but it was in far worse shape than the invaders realized. The economy wasn't going to be kick-started after the damage of wars and a decade of U.N. sanctions.
"The Iraqis expected too much of the United States. In reality, we couldn't do it," Fatfat said. "A huge gap grew between us."
The entity that became the CPA was itself formed in haste, in November 2002, just a few months before the war. The State Department's Iraq experts were left at home in favor of Bush appointees given temporary Pentagon jobs.
"When we flew over in mid-March there were just 170 people on the plane. That was it," the senior reconstruction official said.
At its height, the CPA had 3,000 employees and hangers-on, the official said.
Many had no qualifications for their jobs. The task of rebuilding Iraq's stock exchange, for example, was handed last summer to a 24-year-old college graduate of political science. The exchange has yet to reopen.
Horne, a computer consultant, was attracted by the idea of working in Iraq. He took a taxi from Jordan to Baghdad and landed a job as the CPA's senior adviser for electricity. He said he found himself briefing Bremer on Iraq's electricity grid, which he didn't yet understand.
The tattered power grid remains a problem.
But other CPA projects met with remarkable success. The occupiers printed and distributed a Saddam-free Iraqi dinar. Iraqis trusted the currency immediately. It strengthened against the dollar and has been stable ever since.
Under Fatfat's guidance, the CPA also managed to get Iraq admitted to this summer's Olympic Games. It reopened schools and Iraq's biggest port without a hitch. The untaxed economy has sprouted a new retail sector.
The creation of the interim government looks like a success.
Still, last fall, car bombings were rocking the country, killing hundreds. Guerrilla cells rose up in Baghdad and in towns north and west of the capital. Anyone working for the occupation became a target.
For the CPA, living in the Iraqi capital has been a life in lockdown. Blast walls hem in the green zone. The rest of Iraq is an off-limits "red zone." The people running Iraq were blocked from seeing the very country they tried to govern.
and Lourdes Navarro (Asia Times)
BAGHDAD - For most of the 600 members of the Coalition Provisional Authority, it is time to go home.
The atmosphere inside Baghdad's sealed-off green zone is festive and frantic, with just days before the outfit that has ruled for 13 months dissolves itself and turns governmental power over to Iraq's new interim regime.
Its tenure has been a mere hiccup in Mesopotamia's 7,000-year history, although one that helped free Iraqis from a cruel dictatorship yet left the country in disarray.
The CPA was built from a staff of mainly young backers of the Bush administration who volunteered for what they believed would be the major event of their lives. They arrived in Iraq with a missionary's zeal.
In large part, the California-sized country has defied their will to shape it.
"There is a lot of introspection at the CPA. A lot of us are asking ourselves, have we done the right thing? Are we doing a good job?" said Josh Paul, a 26-year-old from Washington, D.C., who advises Iraq's Interior Ministry.
The discussions are happening as departing friends visit goodbye parties inside the green zone, a walled section of Baghdad that used to protect Saddam Hussein's government and now safeguards Iraq's occupying powers. Many, such as CPA chief L. Paul Bremer, plan to leave Iraq immediately after the June 30 handover ceremony.
"It's got almost an end-of-school-term feel to it," said Nick Horne, a British adviser to the Electricity Ministry.
As the CPA's Department of Defense workers gird for departure, contractors pour concrete and lay sandbags around buildings housing their successors, the State Department employees of the soon-to-open U.S. Embassy.
About 200 CPA functionaries will keep their jobs at Saddam's colossal palace, Iraq's former seat of power that will be the embassy's annex, to the consternation of many Iraqis.
CPA employees say their lives were stressful and uncomfortable. They spent the year living in tents or stacked in trailer parks with names such as Ocean Cliffs and Poolside Suites. They wait in line to use the bathroom. They put in 12- to 18-hour days punctuated by mortar attacks.
Even small comforts, such as pets, were prohibited.
"The majority are happy to leave. You have no life, no entertainment," said Mounzer Fatfat, CPA's senior adviser for youth and sport. "A lot of people got burned out."
The CPA's reign has been salted with tragedy.
Hilary White, the CPA coordinator in the Shiite Muslim city of Hillah, lost her American roommate, Fern Holland, in March. Rebels in police uniforms stopped Holland's car and killed her, along with Bob Zangas, an ex-Marine working for the CPA, and Salwa Oumashi, Holland's Iraqi deputy.
Still, White said she is proud of her accomplishments, and those of the CPA. She shared tearful goodbyes last week with hundreds of Iraqi friends. A Shiite cleric presented her a gold necklace with a Christian cross.
"I will always cherish the gold cross from my Muslim friend, a symbol that two cultures, two religions and two people have immense respect and admiration for each other," White wrote. "I promised our Iraqi friends that wherever I go, I will be an ambassador for the Shiite heartland."
Some in the CPA feel power is being let go too soon, with too many tasks unfinished. Many observers think the CPA's hard work was undercut by its employees' lack of experience, a focus on Washington's needs over Iraq's, and the lack of a rebuilding plan.
Bad decisions compounded problems. Looters weren't halted from wrecking the country's infrastructure, which doubled or tripled the price of reconstruction, a senior U.S. reconstruction official said.
Bremer's dismissal of the Iraqi army created a security vacuum that guerrillas soon filled. When the insurgency kicked in, the CPA was knocked off balance.
Iraqis also harbored enormous expectations of the Americans. They wanted the country rebuilt right away, but it was in far worse shape than the invaders realized. The economy wasn't going to be kick-started after the damage of wars and a decade of U.N. sanctions.
"The Iraqis expected too much of the United States. In reality, we couldn't do it," Fatfat said. "A huge gap grew between us."
The entity that became the CPA was itself formed in haste, in November 2002, just a few months before the war. The State Department's Iraq experts were left at home in favor of Bush appointees given temporary Pentagon jobs.
"When we flew over in mid-March there were just 170 people on the plane. That was it," the senior reconstruction official said.
At its height, the CPA had 3,000 employees and hangers-on, the official said.
Many had no qualifications for their jobs. The task of rebuilding Iraq's stock exchange, for example, was handed last summer to a 24-year-old college graduate of political science. The exchange has yet to reopen.
Horne, a computer consultant, was attracted by the idea of working in Iraq. He took a taxi from Jordan to Baghdad and landed a job as the CPA's senior adviser for electricity. He said he found himself briefing Bremer on Iraq's electricity grid, which he didn't yet understand.
The tattered power grid remains a problem.
But other CPA projects met with remarkable success. The occupiers printed and distributed a Saddam-free Iraqi dinar. Iraqis trusted the currency immediately. It strengthened against the dollar and has been stable ever since.
Under Fatfat's guidance, the CPA also managed to get Iraq admitted to this summer's Olympic Games. It reopened schools and Iraq's biggest port without a hitch. The untaxed economy has sprouted a new retail sector.
The creation of the interim government looks like a success.
Still, last fall, car bombings were rocking the country, killing hundreds. Guerrilla cells rose up in Baghdad and in towns north and west of the capital. Anyone working for the occupation became a target.
For the CPA, living in the Iraqi capital has been a life in lockdown. Blast walls hem in the green zone. The rest of Iraq is an off-limits "red zone." The people running Iraq were blocked from seeing the very country they tried to govern.
