In the first weeks after the statue of Saddam Hussein fell, a group of young American bureaucrats led by Ambassador L. Paul Bremer III set off to establish democracy in Iraq. "We had an ambitious goal," Bremer tells FRONTLINE, "to try to bring better government to Iraq and help them rebuild their economy [and] their country." One year later, as Bremer made a secret exit to evade insurgent attacks, the group left behind a thriving insurgency, economic collapse and much of its idealism. "Our grand initiative there [was] to bring democracy to Iraq," says Rajiv Chandrasekaran, former Baghdad bureau chief for The Washington Post. Instead, says Chandrasekaran, "we were leaving with our tail between our legs."
Today, as America looks for an exit strategy, FRONTLINE examines the initial, critical decisions of the U.S.-led regime in Baghdad in The Lost Year in Iraq. From the same team that produced Rumsfeld's War, The Torture Question and The Dark Side, the film is based on more than 30 interviews, most of them with the officials charged with building a new and democratic Iraq.
The Lost Year in Iraq begins on April 9, 2003, as American troops help a crowd of Iraqis topple a statue of Saddam Hussein. In Washington there was celebration, but in Baghdad the looting was beginning. Jay Garner, the retired general picked by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to lead reconstruction, was forced to wait in Kuwait for authorization to enter Iraq. He and his team had arrived from Washington without computers, telephones or a plan. "Everybody was focused on the war; they were focused on regime change," Garner tells FRONTLINE. "That took all of their energy. I wasn't the central focus." On the day Garner finally arrived in Baghdad, he received a phone call from Rumsfeld: He was being replaced by L. Paul Bremer.
Bremer, who arrived with sweeping plans to remake the country, had a young and inexperienced team, but his staff had passed a political litmus test in Washington. "It's a children's crusade … of former Republican campaign workers, White House interns [and] Heritage Foundation people," says Thomas Ricks of The Washington Post. Col. T.X. Hammes, a counterinsurgency expert and adviser to Iraq's Interior Ministry, felt Bremer's staff could have been better trained. "We had so many of these very, very young people that are dedicated Americans, brave enough to take a chance and go into Iraq to try to do something right for their country," he tells FRONTLINE. "But [they] didn't get any training; they have no background. … And yet we put them in charge of planning at [the] national level."
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/yeariniraq/etc/synopsis.html
1 comment:
I learned so much. We lost the war when we started it. Our troops were lied to and died based on those lies. Bush knew and knows nothing. He let these idiots run the show. Powell was left out of the loop. Rummy was only the front man. Cheney was busy with the profiteering. The White House has all chief and no Indians. Everybody was doing their own thing with no oversight. Connie was looking at who's job she wanted to move into. Yes Americans were played for fools and will always regret that mistake. But the lives of our young men/women were lost for those lies and greed. As a Christian I can only say may God have mercy on the evil Administration/GOP for what they've done to all Americans.
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