My Year in Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope

by L. Paul Bremer III and Iii Bremer, L. Paul

Book Overview

BAGHDAD WAS BURNING. With these words, Ambassador L. Paul Jerry Bremer begins his gripping memoir of fourteen danger-filled months as America's proconsul in Iraq. My Year in Iraq is the only senior... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0743273893
• ISBN13: 9780743273893
• Release Date: January 2006
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 417 Pages
• Weight: 0.78 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Required Reading

My Year in Iraq is a fast-paced, candid and even-handed account of Ambassador Bremer's fourteen months heading up the Coalition Provisional Authority in post-war Iraq. Mr Bremer and his team worked gruelling 18-20 hour days in sweltering heat and cramped conditions, trying to rebuild a devastated country from the ground up. It was a daunting task hampered by not enough troops on the ground, a growing insurgency, and intense political rivalries between the Sunnis, Shias and Kurds. In the background was the shadowy, but influential figure of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, with whom Mr Bremer forged a productive, though sometimes fraught relationship with through intermediaries. Their mutual nemesis, Muqtada al-Sadra and his militiamen, waited in the wings ready to wreak havoc. Mr Bremer's urgings to nip this threat in the bud were ignored by Washington, leading to later devastating consequences. Despite everyday bringing fresh challenges and emergencies, the CPA under Mr Bremer, put in place the crucial underpinnings of a civil society: they recruited and trained a new police force, a new army, dug canals, restored electricity and water supplies, refurbished schools and hospitals, propped up the Iraqi dinar, bought the entire Iraqi wheat crop, issued a new currency, created an independent judiciary, the conditions for a free press, championed women's rights, distributed 60,000 soccer balls, cleared soccer pitches, laid the foundations for a written constitution protecting minority rights with a timetable for elections. Unfortunately, much of this this progress was overshadowed in the news agenda by the bloody atrocities of the insurgents and jihadists, who wanted to derail the democratic progress and reconstruction and provoke civil war. It is to Mr Bremer's lasting credit that he used his considerable political skills to counter and stall the growing pressure in Washington to prematurely hand over the running of Iraq to the `exiles'; he stuck fast to his long-term vision of ensuring that sovereignty was handed over to a fully representative governing council, with safeguards in place to ensure a written constitution, enshrining minority rights, a referendum and election framework. The fact that successful elections have now gone ahead in Iraq is due in no small part to Mr Bremer's tireless work, skilled diplomacy and astute political judgement in that first year. During his time in Iraq Mr Bremer came to admire the Iraqi people he met and worked with and gained a deep, visceral understanding of their suffering under Saddam. He risked his life (read the book) to ensure that the seeds of democracy had a chance to flourish in a land long brutalised by this psychopathic monster, his sadistic sons and their oppressive fascistic Baathist regime. At the end of this book it touching to hear Mr Bremer's phone call to his beloved wife as he flies home, `I'm safe and free and I'm coming home.' This book is destined to become a classic case study

Boots on the ground

As a soldier, much has been said about the miscalculations, misguided strategies and retrospective evaluations, but it is always easier to make comments after the the fact rather than during the event. I would recommend this book without reservation. This book gives a realistic account of the fog of afterwar and the challenges faced in trying to build a democracy while still in a conflict. I think people who have not experienced the nature of such a task would get more out of the book than someone who has been there. It is more of a look at the diplomatic side of the reconstruction than the military side, but military historians would find it interesting as well. It is certainly more of a realistic picture of the day to day in Iraq post-war than I have seen on television. I strongly suspect that many of the reviewers have only read portions of the book, since it is hardly a grudgefest, but more of a narrative of the unanticipated challenges faced in an unanticipated challenge. The fact that not everyone was reading from the same sheet at all times is comforting to me, since that is a sign of both the inherent strength and weakness of a democracy at war...

Required Reading

Mr. Bremer has written an important book. The reader receives the kind of information that could only be supplied by the ranking civilian American in Iraq. Mr. Bremer is free with his analysis and his critiques of the various Iraqi and American individuals making history in Iraq. Mr. Bremer is both harsh and complimentary of individuals on both sides of the political spectrum, making his comments not seem politically driven. Mr. Bremer explains the goals and objectives of the various "players" in Iraq and why progress is very difficult and rarely rapidly achieved. The reader is treated to both success and failure while the country moves towards free elections. His discussions of the Fallujah crisis, Muqtada al-Sadr, Chalabi et al are without parallel. Well written and important. The reader will understand the risks taken by all during Mr. Bremer's year in Iraq. I read this book in two sittings, something I will only do if a book is totally compelling.

Ordering Chaos in Iraq

Ordering Chaos in Iraq "Baghdad was burning" is the first line in this fascinating story of the effort to begin the rebuilding of Iraq as a stable democracy in the Middle East. Right from the start, the reader is drawn into the turmoil and chaos that the author, L. Paul Bremer III, found as he began to lead the Coalition's work in Iraq. This book is not only informative, it is a terrific read; this is not a dry, jargon-filled foreign policy treatise. Bremer tells a gripping story of a growing insurgency and the brave struggle of the Iraqi people for a better life. Each day, under almost impossibly adverse and dangerous circumstances, Bremer takes the reader through the most significant of the dozens of decisions that he had to make without benefit of precedent. There was no rule book for restoring a country's infrastructure wracked by war and decades of neglect, for bringing together people separated by suspicion and ethnic and religious rivalry, or for building a civil society in what was essentially a combat zone. Bremer not only persevered but, in a series of decisions outlined in the book, established the political framework and set in motion the steps that the Iraqis are following carefully to this day. The reader will find this book essential to understanding what is happening - and what is likely to happen - in Iraq, which represents to many the most profound and hazardous set of problems facing America today. Bremer weaves this larger story very well and leaves the reader with the impression that this is also the story of a courageous and decent American diplomat chosen by the President to begin the political process of bringing freedom to millions in the Middle East.

Very Interesting!

Prior to leaving for Iraq in mid-2003, Bremer sent Rumsfeld a copy of a Rand report that concluded that 500,000 troops were needed to occupy Iraq - Rumsfeld never responded. At a briefing prior to his arrival (three weeks post-"liberation") Bremer was told that there were not enough troops in Baghdad to "secure key tactical objectives" - traffic circles, bridges, power plants, banks, and munitions dumps - and also patrol the streets to stop looting. This created great upsetness among Iraqis who concluded that the U.S. simply was there for their oil (the only Iraqi asset we protected). Other bad news at the initial briefing: 1)There was only 300 MW of electrical power available, vs. 4,000 prior to the invasion and 6,000 required nation-wide. Problems included looted power stations, a power grid damaged by large power surges, and looters absconding with copper transmission wires (12,000 miles of lines to target). 2)Limited (if any) sewage, water (half was lost to leaky pipes), and trash service. 3)Iraqi police were poorly trained, only had pistols (vs. looters with AK-47s and some RPGs), and had disappeared. 4)Refineries were old (built in '55) poorly maintained, and oil transmission was supported by 4,000 miles of vulnerable piping. Cooking gas came from Turkey, and would run out in two weeks, while gasoline and diesel fuel were in short supply due to rampant smuggling out of Iraq where it fetched far higher prices (LPG gas fetched 150X as much in Syria, and gas 40X in Turkey). 5)Bremer's CPA had virtually no money - "oil would fund reconstruction." However, U.N. sanctions were still in place - precluding earning oil revenues (lifted 5/22), and nobody had realized the decrepit state of the infrastructure. 5)Iraq's economy was largely held together by government subsidies. The 192 government-owned enterprises operated at a $1 billion loss/year, energy subsidies totaled $5 billion/year, and food subsidies another $3 billion. Meanwhile, government employees had not been paid in over a month, inflation was running 100,000%/year, and unemployment was 50% pre-invasion. 6)Temperatures were headed towards highs of 138 or so degrees. Post-war planning was minimal and worthless. The State Department's "Future of Iraq" project was meant to engage Iraqi-Americans in thinking about their future without Saddam - not as a postwar Iraq plan. The Pentagon had assumed that the Iraqi army would surrender en masse with units intact and soldiers ready to be employed on reconstruction projects. (Just prior to the invasion General Franks had "ordered" Iraqi troops to "remain in uniform at all times, maintain unit integrity and good order and discipline.") Bremer explains why this didn't happen: Four hundred thousand of the 715,000 man army was made up of Shiite conscripts, subject to hazing, and arbitrary executions by their almost entirely Sunni officers - thus, not a single intact unit remained because they all went home. Similarly, it was assu