This is a collection of very interesting interviews that have been produced by the Professional Training Program of the U.S. Institute for Peace. The 35 interviews appear all to have been conducted in 2004. The interviewees are all people who worked in Iraq in the reconstruction undertaken in the aftermath of the war. The interviews were intended "to draw lessons learned and address the challenges of post-conflict intervention." The interviews are remarkably frank. I have included the summaries of two interviews below:
"Retired USAID officer Larry Crandall pulled two tours in Iraq. Crandall was asked to travel to Iraq following a Foreign Service career throughout which he garnered expertise on war and civil conflict. His experiences include work in Haiti, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. For the two months encompassing the kinetic part of the war, he was involved in preparing plans for the demilitarization, demobilization, and reintegration (“DDR”) of Saddam’s armed forces and those of the anti-Saddam militias.
Mr. Crandall expressed several reservations with the reconstruction effort. He notes a lack of proper planning and inadequate implementation of existing plans. The latter was largely due to inexperience and became particularly problematic. He stated that the occupation led by Jerry Bremer essentially ignored the DDR plan until it was too late for effective implementation. Bremer lacked the experience to understand the political aspects of demilitarization. This lack of recognition had the result that none of the essential recommendations were undertaken.
"Crandall also witnessed planning problems as the prime deputy involved with the $18,000,000,000 reconstruction program. He found that there was no policy directing the use of the funds and that those responsible lacked the experience necessary for effective implementation. This combination led to a disconnect between quick-start projects and long-term projects.
"Crandall raises other issues, including the level of corruption among the Iraqis, the error of the total exclusion of Baathists from the reform process, the reactive mode of the public affairs (Stratcom) office, and the difficulty of recruiting the best officers to serve in Iraq due to security and career concerns. Security concerns have also damaged the ability to use development funds to carry out projects in Iraq.
Ambassador Robin L. Raphel was born in the State of Washington in 1947. She received a BA from the University of Washington, and MA's from University of Maryland in economics and from Cambridge University, Newhall College in the United Kingdom, also in economics. She entered the Foreign Service in 1977 and served mainly as an economic officer. Her areas of specialization were South Asia, she was assistant secretary for the area, and the Middle East. She was ambassador to Tunisia. She was vice president of the National Defense University when called upon to serve on the General Garner team going to Iraq. She served in Kuwait and Iraq from April to August 2003. In Kuwait while waiting to go to Iraq there was little training. The group was not prepared. Ideology was the overriding factor. She felt that there was clear political pressure, election driven and calendar driven to invade Iraq before there was sufficient preparation and significant international support. Training was not the issue, experience was from work in Afghanistan and the Balkans, but this was not tapped. She was to be the senior advisor to the Ministry of Trade.
"The Iraqi Ministry of Trade was responsible for food distribution under the Saddam regime after the sanctions. It was considered it to be an efficient system and the U.S. planned to reinstate it as an interim measure. While the top officials were gone there was a significant number of midlevel Iraqi officials to run the program. The biggest problem was looting, which had destroyed the offices of the ministry and its means of communicating with storehouse throughout the country. Initially coordination was done by messengers in automobiles.
"Foodstuffs were coming into Iraq in sufficient numbers. The Iraqis worked well with the interviewee. They were helped by U.S. civil affairs units which performed with a range of efficiency. The Kurdish area took care of itself. There were problems in the Sunni area but security was not an overriding problem until after the interviewee left. The South was poorer than the rest of the country. Trade between neighboring states quickly restored itself and in a short time the market place was bustling with no attempt to collect custom duties. There was not much initiative on the part of the bureaucratic structure as it had always been directed from above.
"The debaathification program and the demobilization of the army were unwise. These decisions were ideologically based, not on understanding or analysis. The American 'neocon' ideology was that it would be an easy war and we would be welcomed with open arms. This was ill-judged and eventually we changed our course. Regarding contractors such as Halliburton and KBR this was 'just good old boys making a lot of money, and Asian truck drivers'. When the interviewee was in Kuwait she used gallows humor and said to her Foreign Service colleagues 'Don't worry, within week we will be on our knees to the UN because we can't do this.'
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