Pretty good (and surprisingly unbiased/accurate) summary of a specific time in Iraq (2003-2004 occupation period under CPA). Interesting to read this and then some contemporaneous books by the people mentioned in these events (L. Paul Bremer particularly).

In general, when something goes wrong as badly as the Iraq war, I like to think of the counterfactual of "how many bullets in the right bodies would it have taken to solve this at the time, given what a reasonable person should have known at the time with privileged access". Iraq probably was bigger than the one-bullet naive solution (Chalabi), but might be a 3 body problem. Maybe a few more, but still not that many compared to what happened. ( )

Movie has very little to do with the book; and I found the movie to be very disappointing, very simple-minded. The book, on the other hand, is extremely powerful, extremely sad. The pathetic, criminal ignorance and ineptitude of the Bush Administration, Rumsfeld's DOD, and the neo-conservatives running the show makes this a very hard read. Chandrasekaran was the bureau chief for the Washington Post before the war and went back immediately after the invasion. He talks to everybody. (I've been following Chandrasekaran's career since he was writing Wash. Post Metro stories about Old Town Alexandria! as he worked with a friend of mine. He went on to become a foreign correspondent.) Great, great job of reporting. ( )

Grim, fascinating and at times almost unbelievable story of Baghdad after the war. This is a story of incompetence, prejudice and power told in a fairly balanced way. ( )

Imperial Life in the Emerald City describes what went wrong with the reconstruction of Iraq. It was a sad book to read because it pointed out all of the opportunities lost. Although it pointed out a lot of major missteps, I found that it was not politically skewed or motivated. The author did paint some of members of the Busch administration in a bad light, but at the same time it seemed clear that they really thought they were doing the right thing at the time. I enjoyed reading this book and felt that it helped me understand what is going on in Iraq. I just wish that we hadn't messed everything up so badly to begin with. ( )

It would be a comedy of errors, if it weren't so tragic. ( )