Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Baghdad's Green Zone
Sep 2009 · Bloomsbury Publishing
4.3star
6 reviewsreport
Ebook
368
Pages
reportRatings and reviews aren’t verified Learn More
About this ebook
From a walled-off enclave of towering plants, smart villas and sparkling swimming pools - a surreal bubble of pure Americana known as the Green Zone - the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority, under imperial viceroy L. Paul Bremer III, attempted to rule Iraq in the first twelve months after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime.
Drawing on hundreds of interviews and internal documents, Rajiv Chandrasekaran tells the memorable story of this ill-prepared attempt to build American democracy in a war-torn Middle Eastern country, detailing not only the risky disbanding of the Iraqi army and the ludicrous attempt to train the new police force, but also bringing to light a host of lesser-known yet typical travesties, among them:
* the aide who based Baghdad's new traffic laws on those of the state of Maryland, downloaded
* the contractor with no previous experience paid millions to guard a closed airport
* the people with prior experience in the Middle East who were excluded in favour of lesser-qualified Republican Party loyalists
* the case of the 24-year-old who had never worked in finance put in charge of revitalising Baghdad's stock exchange
Written with wit and urgency by a sharp-eyed observer, Imperial Life in the Emerald City provides a hair-raising portrait of the gap between the Oz-like Green Zone and the brutal reality of post-war Iraq. It is American reportage at its best.
Drawing on hundreds of interviews and internal documents, Rajiv Chandrasekaran tells the memorable story of this ill-prepared attempt to build American democracy in a war-torn Middle Eastern country, detailing not only the risky disbanding of the Iraqi army and the ludicrous attempt to train the new police force, but also bringing to light a host of lesser-known yet typical travesties, among them:
* the aide who based Baghdad's new traffic laws on those of the state of Maryland, downloaded
* the contractor with no previous experience paid millions to guard a closed airport
* the people with prior experience in the Middle East who were excluded in favour of lesser-qualified Republican Party loyalists
* the case of the 24-year-old who had never worked in finance put in charge of revitalising Baghdad's stock exchange
Written with wit and urgency by a sharp-eyed observer, Imperial Life in the Emerald City provides a hair-raising portrait of the gap between the Oz-like Green Zone and the brutal reality of post-war Iraq. It is American reportage at its best.
Ratings and reviews
4.3
6 reviews
Praadeep Phanse
- Flag inappropriate
March 10, 2019
want hard copy
Mohammed irfan Saiyed
- Flag inappropriate
March 30, 2015
Truth about iraq
About the author
Rajiv Chandrasekaran is an assisting managing editor of The Washington Post, where he has worked since 1994. He previously served the Post as a bureau chief in Baghdad, Cairo, and Southeast Asia, and as a correspondent covering the war in Afghanistan. He recently completed a term as journalist-in-residence at the International Reporting Project at the Johns Hopkins school for Advanced International Studies, and was a public policy scholar at the Wodrow Wilson International Center. He lives in Washington, D.C.
Rate this ebook
Tell us what you think.
Reading information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.
