The rule of empires : those who built them, those who endured them, and why they always fall (85 page)

controlled Iraq because its authority extended only as far as the United

States military could shoot. Liberated from Saddamist controls, common Iraqis were free to do as they pleased outside the immediate gaze

of the Americans. Unlike in earlier empires, there were no chiefs and

native auxiliaries to force them to accept the authority of the foreign

conquerors. President Bush may have been sincere in disavowing

imperial ambitions in Iraq, but his advisors apparently never warned

him that using military force to seize direct sovereignty over millions

of unwilling foreign subjects would lead to imperial rule.

Bush offi cials therefore made no provision for the messy realities

of imperial governance and control. The CPA, which acquired the

popular moniker “Condescending and Patronizing Americans,” was

Conclusion 437

a formal imperial state because it sought to govern Iraq directly. But

it was also unquestionably one of the most pathetically inept imperial regimes in recorded history. Critics often referred to Ambassador

L. Paul Bremer, the CPA administrator, as an American viceroy, but

the former diplomat with strong Republican Party ties had no real

sense of what the job entailed. He was confi dent that he had learned

how to deal with “tribes” during a previous posting to Malawi, and

he equated Iraqi leaders with African “tribal chiefs.” Bremer compared himself to the American generals who oversaw the reconstruction of Germany and Japan after World War II, but he had more in

common with the paternalistic but naive missionaries who legitimized the new imperialism. Wearing a suit and tie to demonstrate

his respect for Iraqis, he envisioned himself as a platonic guardian

wielding benevolent authoritarianism to transform Iraq into a liberal western society. In the 2006 memoir of his year in Iraq, Bremer

acknowledged that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass

destruction, but he used a typical balance sheet argument to justify

the invasion on the grounds it had “prevented the tyrant from massacring more innocent people.”22

Although there were exceptions, much of the rest of the CPA was

equally imperially minded. Just as imperial Kenya drew ambitious

careerists such as Meinertzhagen, Bremer’s staff consisted primarily

of eager recent college graduates whose only real qualifi cations were

neoconservative zealotry and Republican political ties. President Bush

recruited some personally. Others got their jobs through Republican

congressmen, conservative think tanks, or party activists. Claiming

an exemption from federal employment regulations on the grounds

that they were hiring temporary political appointees, CPA recruiters

asked potential candidates how they voted in the 2000 elections and

their position on abortion. Although Bremer’s aides included some

older businessmen and retired civil servants, this young “brat pack”

ran most of the CPA. A twenty-four-year-old oversaw the Baghdad

stock market, and the six staffers who managed the thirteen-billiondollar Iraqi budget were all under thirty.23

The CPA itself operated out of one of Saddam Hussein’s palace

complexes in a fortifi ed redoubt known as the Green Zone. Almost

entirely isolated from common Iraqis within this bunkered enclave,

which cynics dubbed the “Emerald City,” Bremer’s staffers pretended

they were still in America. In addition to bars, discos, GMC Suburban

438 THE RULE OF EMPIRES

SUVs, and FM 107.7 “Freedom Radio” (classic rock and propaganda),

their reliable electricity and running water were the envy of Baghdad

residents who found necessities in short supply after the looting.24

Initially, Bremer was reasonably confi dent that he could address

such problems. Drawing his authority from a personal letter from

George Bush, the CPA administrator had total control over all executive, legislative, judicial, and fi scal functions in Iraq. He was in this

sense no more accountable to common Iraqis than Saddam Hussein.

More signifi cant, his decision to delay indefi nitely the transfer of

power clashed directly with Donald Rumsfeld’s plans to create a puppet

Iraqi regime. Assuming that American power gave him the means to

remake Iraqi society, Bremer disbanded the army and “de-Baathifi ed”

Iraqi society by expelling former high-and middle-ranking party

members from their jobs. American commanders objected strongly

because they were counting on Iraqi units to help maintain law and

order, but Bremer justifi ed his purge by equating it with the de-Nazifi cation of German society after the Second World War.

The neophyte American viceroy claimed that these moves were

part of a master plan to build a “unifi ed and stable, democratic Iraq.”

He aimed to accomplish this feat of imperial social engineering by creating a new army, restoring power generation, reopening schools and

hospitals, introducing a new currency, imposing a market economy,

and, most important, restarting oil production. Predictably, Bremer

did not include representative democracy on his list of immediate

objectives. Rejecting as reckless Garner’s plan to appoint an interim

Iraqi government, he envisioned a drawn-out and incremental period

of American tutelage whereby Iraqis would write a constitution, conduct a census, pass election laws, and create political parties before

having the privilege of choosing their own government.

Bremer’s grand vision fl oundered on a number of complicating realities, not the least of which was the fl ood of special-interest

groups that parasitized the occupation. These contractors, speculators,

civil service careerists, and outright criminals resembled earlier generations of imperial opportunists and nabobs that preyed on subject

societies. In the Iraqi case, however, their prime target was the incredibly inept occupying power. With Iraq’s oil industry in a shambles,

the real prize was the staggering sums that the Bush administration

set aside for reconstruction. Roughly twenty billion dollars of these

funds came from the Baathist regime’s unfrozen bank accounts and

Conclusion 439

reserves from the United Nation’s preinvasion “oil-for-food” program. The American government then had to add another eighteen

billion dollars of its own money in November 2003 when it became

clear that Wolfowitz’s promises of a self-fi nancing invasion and

occupation had fallen fl at. Acknowledging World Bank and United

Nations estimates that it would take roughly fi fty billion dollars to

rebuild Iraq, the Bush administration tried and failed to get its allies

to make up the shortfall. Between 2002 and 2008 it therefore spent

approximately fi fty billion dollars of American taxpayers’ money in

Iraq. This was the largest foreign aid package for a single nation in

U.S. history.25

Just as they had bungled the planning for Operation Iraqi Freedom,

Bush offi cials were remarkably inept in managing and protecting this

tempting windfall. They gave their friends and allies no-bid contracts

to provide everything from logistical support for the invasion force

to large-scale development and state-building projects in Iraq itself.

Predictably, most of the Iraqi reconstruction funding went to a small

group of politically infl uential corporations and companies. By far,

the largest bonanza went to Halliburton. Leveraging its connections

with Vice President Cheney, Halliburton’s former CEO, the corporation won contracts to rebuild the Iraqi oil industry, construct power

and water treatment plants, and supply virtually all of the United

States military’s logistical needs in Iraq. Free from direct oversight,

the company racked up billions of dollars in questionable billings,

including a $61 million overcharge for importing oil and single $247

cans of soft drinks for American troops.26

While Halliburton’s bounty made it a symbol of Bush administration mismanagement, it was by no means the only special interest to profi t from imperial-style privileges. An engineer working for

the Parsons Corporation made $150,000 per year ($90,000 of which

was tax free), a civilian American truck driver made $80,000, and a

“shooter” for a private security fi rm could earn an annual salary of

up to $200,000. This last opportunity arose from Rumsfeld’s decision

to keep U.S. troop levels unworkably low. Missing what amounted to

an entire army division, American commanders needed private military contractors to provide basic security throughout the country.

Blackwater Worldwide had a $21 million contract to guard Bremer

and the CPA, while an improbably named fi rm called Custer Battles

earned $16 million plus costs to protect the Baghdad airport.27

440 THE RULE OF EMPIRES

The opportunities for corruption in this barely supervised fl ood

of cash, millions of which arrived in shrink-wrapped bundles of

hundred-dollar bills, were painfully obvious. The owners of Custer

Battles used front companies in the Cayman Islands and Lebanon to

infl ate their costs and barely escaped prosecution for fraud when they

left an incriminating spreadsheet on a CPA conference table showing they had billed more than $9 million for work costing $3.7 million. On a smaller scale, some of the less idealistic CPA offi cials were

equally vulnerable to temptation. One manager oversaw a fund of

$82 million and accepted $3 million worth of fi rst-class plane tickets,

real estate, vehicles, jewelry, and sexual services from prostitutes in

return for reconstruction contracts.28

Although some of these looted funds came from Iraqi oil money,

the Americans did not practice conventional imperial extraction in

Iraq. They collected no tribute and never forced anyone to work

for them. Still, most Iraqis suffered considerably upon becoming

subjects of the United States. Bremer’s ill-conceived mass demobilization of the army and de-Baathifi cation policies threw more

than half a million people out of work and produced a 40 percent

spike in the national unemployment rate. Thousands of jobless

veterans took to the streets of Baghdad in protest, and a former

sergeant reduced to peddling tea spoke for many of them when he

asked, quite legitimately: “Where are my rights and salary? Did

U.S. democracy come and devour them?”29 To make matters worse,

Bremer and his advisors moved to cut food subsidies and close or

sell off state-owned industries as part of their plan to liberalize the

Iraqi economy.

Comparatively speaking, earlier generations of imperial subjects

suffered far worse indignities than those endured by the Iraqis under

American rule. Nevertheless, the experience of invasion and occupation was extraordinarily traumatic for a great many people, even if

they hated Saddam Hussein. Ahmed Hashim, a counterinsurgency

expert with the United States Central Command (CENTCOM),

argued convincingly that the American conquest and elimination

of the Iraqi army created a profound identity crisis for most of the

country’s Sunni Arabs. As Majid Hamid al-Bayati sermonized in a

Baghdad mosque in the immediate aftermath of Bremer’s directives:

“They have destroyed our institutions, our people and our security.

They have totally erased us.”30

Conclusion 441

Faced with impoverishment and the loss of the privileges and status from the Baathist era, many Sunnis opted to fi ght the Americans.

The fi rst serious incident took place in April 2003 when U.S. troops

killed or wounded eight people by shooting into a crowd of protesters in the town of Fallujah. Accounts differ as to which side fi red

fi rst, but most Iraqis were certain it was the Americans. As attacks on

the occupation forces mounted, President Bush rashly declared: “My

answer is bring ’em on. We’ve got the force necessary to deal with the

security situation.”

In point of fact, the CPA did not have the manpower to control

Iraq. The so-called Multi-National Division of Poles, Ukrainians, and

Central Americans was actually only a brigade of three thousand soldiers. The New Iraqi Corps (NIC), which Bremer expected to replace

the Baathist-dominated Iraqi army, was entirely unreliable, and very

few of the nations that joined the Bush administration’s “coalition of

the willing” were willing to commit their troops to actual combat.

The consequences of the Bush administration’s inability to assert

authority over Iraq were enormous. Earlier empires understood that

effective imperial rule depended on maintaining the illusion of invincibility to convince subjects that it was futile, if not suicidal, to resist.

The Americans, however, were dangerously vulnerable. In an incident widely reported in the U.S. media, a Yemeni engineering student

walked up to a Florida National Guardsman drinking a ginger ale at

Baghdad University and shot him in the head. The Iraqi insurgents

effectively called the Americans’ bluff by murdering and intimidating

anyone who became too closely associated with the occupying power.

A former Baathist general active in the resistance made the explicit

link between cooperation and the crime of collaboration. “Every Iraqi

or foreigner who works with the Coalition is a target. Ministries,

mercenaries, translators, businessmen, cooks or maids, it doesn’t matter the degree of collaboration. To sign a contract with the occupiers is