Incompetence or Double-Dealing in Coalition Management of Iraq?

[Quetzal]

Incompetence or Double-Dealing in Coalition Management of Iraq?

The Coalition decision to provoke a fight with Muqtada al-Sadr's movement only three months before the Coalition Provisional Authority goes out of business has to be seen as a form of gross incompetence in governance. How did the CPA get to the point where it has turned even Iraqi Shiites, who were initially grateful for the removal of Saddam Hussein, against the United States? Where it risks fighting dual Sunni Arab and Shiite insurgencies simultaneously, at a time when US troops are rotating on a massive scale and hoping to downsize their forces in country? At a time when the Spanish, Thai and other contingents are already committed to leaving, and the UN is reluctant to get involved?

One answer is that the Pentagon prevented the State Department from running the CPA. State is the body with experience in international affairs and administration. The civilians in the Department of Defense only know how to blow things up. Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Feith staffed the CPA with Neoconservatives, most of whom had no administrative experience, no Arabic, and no respect for Muslim culture (or knowledge about it). They actively excluded State Department Iraq hands like Tom Warrick. (Only recently have a few experienced State Department Arabists been allowed in to try to begin mopping up the mess.) The Neocons in the CPA have all sorts of ulterior motives and social experiments they want to impose on the Iraqi people, including Polish-style economic shock therapy, some sort of sweetheart deal for Israel, and maybe even breaking the country up into three parts.

The Washington Monthly's Who's Who of Neocons in Iraq helps explain the extreme incompetence and possibly double-dealing of many in the CPA.

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http://www.juancole.com/2004_04_01_juancole_archive.html#108113106262362862