Concessions: The Making Of · 9:52pm Apr 20th, 2014
Let's face it. All you guys reading this are millenials. So, if you've read Concessions (and if you haven't go read it now) you might have a weird sense of deja vu, like the set-up of that story was somewhat familiar. You're right, of course. It's loosely based on the utter chaos of the 2003 Iraq invasion, because god damn that is a fertile ground for storytelling. I read one story years ago, before I'd even left school, and it stayed with me for years: the Al Qa'qaa high-explosives cockup, where American troops came across a warehouse containing 377 tonnes of high explosives, briefly noted it, left the area, and came back three weeks later to find all of the explosives gone.
But the best, most horrifying yet at the same time comic account of the invasion and occupation is Rajiv Chandrasekaran's Imperial Life in the Emerald City.
Imperial Life is an account of some of the truly batshit stuff that happened in the wake of the 2003 invasion. Every single page has a new 'what the fresh hell' on it so if I tried to tell all of the anecdotes I'd just be copying the book straight out, and there's no point in that. Instead, I'll talk about two of the anecdotes that inspired Concessions.
The first was the ORHA — the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, the predecessor to the Coalition Provisional Authority. These guys were supposed to be in charge of making sure the country didn't fall into chaos after Saddam was routed. Before the invasion, ORHA sent the military a list of high value buildings that needed immediate protection after the invasion. The Iraqi National Bank, which housed the Assyrian treasure, was one. Most of Iraq's various ministries, especially the ones of finance and of the various industries were others, as pretty much everything in Iraq was state controlled and the records and equipment in these ministries would be essential to getting the country back up and running again.
A few weeks later, ORHA's staffers were in Kuwait. They had to wait until the military had finished clearing out Baghdad, and were holed up in a hotel room with no information whatsoever. The only way they could find out what was going on was to watch the hotel room TV and see the footage of the bombings and lootings. They notice several buildings being looted which were on the protection list. When they asked the Department of Defence, they said they never got any list.
The staffers ended up staying in their hotel room for several more days, playing a game called 'THAT'S YOUR MINISTRY' as they saw the various vital installations being stripped by looters right down to the copper wiring in the walls, and then burned to the ground by bored arsonists.
The second anecdote is about a security firm called Custer Battles LLC. They were hired to guard and renovate Baghdad's international airport. The DOD wanted a security company on the ground in three weeks. All of the other firms looked at the contract and said 'there is no way we can get anyone half competent there in three weeks. You guys have no idea of the scale of the task you're asking.' Custer Battles said of course they could get there in three weeks, and immediately got the contract. When they got there, it was moot. The airport couldn't be opened because the insurgents still had a whole bunch of shoulder-fired missiles and itchy trigger fingers. Still, they were told to guard it anyway.
While they were there, they decided they weren't making enough money. So, they started faking expense sheets, using shell companies to create hugely marked-up services which they then charged the Coalition for. They took forklifts that they had found lying around the airport, spraypainted them, and claimed they'd just bought them from Syria. They got caught when they left documents on a table during a CPA conference meeting showing in black and white that they had charged ten million dollars for four million dollars worth of services.
As punishment, the Pentagon barred Custer Battles from obtaining any more military contracts. By then, it was 2004, and they had already received $100 million in contracts.
Seriously. Go buy this book.
And read Concessions if you haven't already.
Yep. The US State Department generated 14 volumes of information about governing Iraq after we toppled the regime there. The Defense Department took a look, said "Pffft, we got this," and tossed the whole mess into the trash.
Another interesting bit was the Interim Government. A lot of the staff there had been chosen to go out there and make oodles of boodle simply because they were ideologically compatible with the Administration then currently in power. Knowledge of how to, you know, actually run a country wasn't even a prerequisite.
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It's even worse than you think. The administration — specifically the likes of Doug 'the dumbest fucking guy on the planet' Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, and the rest of the neocon squad went out of their way to stop ORHA even talking to the CIA and the State Dept, as they believed that State and the CIA were insufficiently committed to the mission to turn Iraq into their shining city of whisky, democracy, sexy! So ORHA (and then various parts of the CPA) went in blind, because of course the neocons and DOD hadn't bothered with the gritty, details-level stuff of planning to rebuild a country.
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Quite so. They figured that they'd toss the whole country into the air and it would fall right into the pattern they wanted. Well, no.
Yeah. It's mind-boggling how poorly managed the vast majority of those efforts were. Nobody involved had ever done anything like it, and it showed.
I might actually check out Imperial Life, even if I'll probably be reading it through the gaps of my fingers. Only book I've finished on the subject was The Forever War, which was about as depressing.
And people wonder why our country is in the shitter. Thanks, Bush.
OI!
Stop making me feel old, I'm only 22.
Ah, Rajiv. I've actually worked with him once or twice. Smart dude.
I look back at my, uh, eight or so years at war, and I realize I've got a couple of these batshit stories just from my own experience. I can only imagine what a talented journalist who scoured the entire war would find.
Certainly, I've got nothing on Al'Qaa or the fiasco that was the early months of the Iraq invasion. That was a masterpiece of truly epic proportions.
And now you got me to read Concessions.
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/burns with a strange mixture of jealousy, longing, and inadequacy.
Yes! YES!
2028971 You and me both. Stuff like that can be fascinating but so damn depressing. I laugh that Chuck is an author I will willingly read pretty much anything he publishes, even if it's not even remotely near my usual interests, simply because I know he'll make it compelling and appealing.
Concessions and those anecdotes make me think of Tucker Max. His books which can be summed up as "charismatic asshole, sleeps with women, acts like a massive prick and is rewarded." They're sometimes even kinda funny since he's just as willing to make fun of himself, but definitely someone I would never want to meet or interact with. >< It's a case of I read them and feel bad for laughing but can't help it.
Of course if you really wanna see some epic FUBAR moments for the Invasion, watch Generation Kill. It's based on a documentary written by a Journalist during the invasion, and some of the actors are the actual soldiers playing themselves.
It's no comedy, and is in fact uncompromisingly dark. But I highly recommend it. In this series you'll see:
-A truck with 300 pounds of C4, food, and ammunition left unguarded and subsequently disappear.
-A crazy coward Captain try to fight insurgents who were already arrested and restrained.
-A private overdose on medication and rant about the relationship between wars and the sex industry
-An armada of Pizza Hut delivery vehicles
-The US air force carpet bombs an empty desert
-Parkour!
-Serpentine Sniper dodging