My Year in Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope "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 insider's perspective on the crucial period following the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime. In vivid, dramatic detail, Bremer reveals the previously hidden struggles among Iraqi politicians and America's leaders, taking us from the ancient lanes in the holy city of Najaf to the White House Situation Room and the Pentagon E-Ring. His memoir carries the reader behind closed doors in Baghdad during hammer-and-tongs negotiations with emerging Iraqi leaders as they struggle to forge the democratic institutions vital to Iraq's future of hope. He describes his private meetings with President Bush and his admiration for the president's firm wartime leadership. And we witness heated sessions among members of America's National Security Council -- George Bush, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, and Condoleezza Rice -- as Bremer labors to realize the vision he and President Bush share of a free and democratic New Iraq. He admires the selfless and courageous work of thousands of American servicemen and -women and civilians in Iraq. The flames Bremer describes on arriving in Baghdad were from fires started by looters. One of his first acts was to request an additional 4,000 Military Police to help restore order in the streets. For most of the next year, as the insurgency spread, Bremer resisted efforts by generals and senior Defense Department civilians to reduce American troop strength prematurely, replacing our forces with ill-trained, poorly led Iraqi police and soldiers. And he lays to rest the myth that the Coalition disbanded Saddam's army, a force comprised of Shiite draftees who had deserted and refused to serve under their former Sunni officers. Bremer also describes his frustration with intelligence operations that concentrated on the search for weapons of mass destruction while the insurgency gathered strength. Bremer faced daunting problems working with Iraq's traumatized and divided population to find a path to a responsible and representative government. The Shia Arabs, the country's long-repressed majority, deeply distrusted the Sunni Arab minority who had held power for centuries and had controlled the detested Baath Party. Iraq's non-Arab Kurds teetered on the brink of secession when Bremer arrived. He had to find Sunnis willing to participate in the new political order. Some in the U.S. government pushed for what Bremer would come to call a cut-and-run policy that would have quickly delivered governance of Iraq to a handful of unrepresentative anti-Saddam exiles. Bremer vigorously resisted this ill-conceived course. He takes the reader inside marathon negotiations as he and his team shepherded Iraq's new leaders to write an interim constitution with guarantees for individual and minority rights unprecedented in the region. My Year in Iraq is required reading for all those interested in the real story of how America responded to its gravest recent overseas crisis. |
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Table des matières
3 | |
23 | |
Repairing a Shattered Nation | 50 |
Political Minuet | 78 |
A Distant Hope | 104 |
Dont Bother Us with History | 147 |
Can America Stand the Heat? | 178 |
Road Map to Democracy | 210 |
A Bitter Fight Begins | 267 |
Writing the Constitution | 286 |
Hitting the Wall | 309 |
Cliffhanger | 347 |
Sovereign Iraq | 378 |
Afterword | 397 |
Acknowledgments | 399 |
401 | |
Autres éditions - Tout afficher
My Year in Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope L. Paul Bremer,Malcolm McConnell Aucun aperçu disponible - 2006 |
Expressions et termes fréquents
Abizaid Adel Adnan Pachachi afternoon agreed Ahmad Chalabi Al-Hillah al-Sadr Allawi Ambassador American Arab asked attacks AUL B REMER Ayad Allawi Ayatollah Sistani Baath Party Baathists Baghdad Bahr al-Uloum Barzani Blackwill Brahimi called Chalabi Clay Coalition forces Coalition’s Condi Rice Council members country’s Dan Senor de-Baathification democracy discussed elections Fallujah Ghazi going Governing Council guys Hakim insurgents interim constitution interim government Iraq Iraq’s Iraqi Army Iraqi government Iraqi police Islam Islamist issue Jaafari Jerry June 30 Karbala Kurdish Kurds leaders looked Mahdi Army meeting ment military militia Ministry months morning Muqtada Muqtada al-Sadr Najaf night November 15 Agreement Pachachi palace Pentagon political process Powell President Bush president’s prime minister problem Rick Sanchez Rubaie Rumsfeld Saddam Hussein SCIRI Secretary senior Shia Shiite soldiers sovereignty staff Sunni Talabani terrorists there’s tion told troops wanted Washington weeks What’s
Fréquemment cités
Page 15 - The images you are seeing on television you are seeing over, and over, and over, and it's the same picture of some person walking out of some building with a vase, and you see it twenty times, and you think: "My goodness, were there that many vases? Is it possible that there were that many vases in the whole country?
Page 9 - Americans are a free people, who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation. The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world; it is God's gift to humanity.
Page 15 - ... Freedom's Untidy, Said Rumsfeld Rumsfeld referred to the looting and anarchy in Iraq following the US bombing: Freedom's untidy. And free people are free to commit mistakes, and to commit crimes. It is an untidiness that accompanies the transition from tyranny to freedom. Here is a country that is being liberated. Here are people who are going from being repressed and held under the thumb of a dictator, and they're free. Referring to Rumsfeld statements about an "untidy war...
Page 15 - I read eight headlines that talked about chaos, violence, unrest. And it just was Henny Penny, 'The sky is falling.' I've never seen anything like it! And here is a country that's being liberated, here are people who are going from being repressed and held under the thumb of a vicious dictator, and they're free.
Références à ce livre
The American Culture of War: A History of US Military Force from World War ... Adrian R. Lewis Aucun aperçu disponible - 2006 |
After 9/11: Cultural Dimensions of American Global Power Richard Crockatt Aucun aperçu disponible - 2007 |