Occupying Iraq: a History of the Coalition Provisional Authority Tion of Its Work Was, in Fact, Done on an Unclassified Basis
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This electronic representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for non-commercial use only. Unauthorized posting of RAND PDFs to a non-RAND Web site is prohibited. RAND PDFs are protected under copyright law. Permission is required from RAND to reproduce, or reuse in another form, any of our research documents for commercial use. For information on reprint and linking permissions, please see RAND Permissions. This product is part of the RAND Corporation monograph series. RAND monographs present major research findings that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors. All RAND mono- graphs undergo rigorous peer review to ensure high standards for research quality and objectivity. OCCUPYING IRAQ A HISTORY OF THE COALITION PROVISIONAL AUTHORITY JAMES DOBBINS , SETH G. JONES , BEN J AMIN RUNKLE , SI dd HA R TH MOHAN D AS Sponsored by the Carnegie Corporation of New York Approved for public release; distribution unlimited NATIONAL SECURITY RESEARCH DIVISION The research described in this report was sponsored by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and conducted within the International Security and Defense Policy Center of the RAND National Security Research Division (NSRD). NSRD conducts research and analysis for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the Unified Combatant Commands, the defense agencies, the Department of the Navy, the Marine Corps, the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Intelligence Community, allied foreign governments, and foundations. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Occupying Iraq : a history of the Coalition Provisional Authority / James Dobbins ... [et al.]. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-8330-4665-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Coalition Provisional Authority. 2. Postwar reconstruction—Iraq. 3. Bremer, L. Paul. 4. Iraq—Politics and government—2003– I. Dobbins, James. II. Coalition Provisional Authority. DS79.769.O33 2009 956.7044'31—dc22 2009007507 Cover photo credits (clockwise from top left): AP Photo/Jerome Delay; AP Photo/Dusan Vranic; AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed; AP Photo/Hussein Malla The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit research organization providing objective analysis and effective solutions that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors around the world. RAND’s publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors. R® is a registered trademark. Cover design by Carol Earnest © Copyright 2009 RAND Corporation Permission is given to duplicate this document for personal use only, as long as it is unaltered and complete. Copies may not be duplicated for commercial purposes. Unauthorized posting of RAND documents to a non-RAND Web site is prohibited. RAND documents are protected under copyright law. For information on reprint and linking permissions, please visit the RAND permissions page (http://www.rand.org/publications/permissions.html). Published 2009 by the RAND Corporation 1776 Main Street, P.O. Box 2138, Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138 1200 South Hayes Street, Arlington, VA 22202-5050 4570 Fifth Avenue, Suite 600, Pittsburgh, PA 15213-2665 RAND URL: http://www.rand.org To order RAND documents or to obtain additional information, contact Distribution Services: Telephone: (310) 451-7002; Fax: (310) 451-6915; Email: [email protected] Preface The American engagement in Iraq has been looked at from many per- spectives, including the flawed intelligence that provided the war’s rationale, the failed effort to secure an international mandate, the rapid success of the invasion, and the long ensuing counterinsurgency cam- paign. This book focuses on the activities of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) and its administrator, L. Paul Bremer, who governed Iraq from his arrival on May 12, 2003, to his departure on June 28 of the following year. It is an account of that occupation, seen largely from American eyes—mostly from Americans working in Baghdad for the CPA. It is based on interviews with many of those in Baghdad and Washington responsible for setting and implementing occupation policy, on the memoirs of American and Iraqi officials who have since left office, on journalists’ accounts of the period, and on nearly 100,000 internal CPA documents to which the authors were allowed access. This book recounts and evaluates the efforts of the United States and its coalition partners to restore public services; reform the judi- cial and penal systems; fight corruption; reduce inflation; expand the economy; and create the basis for a democratic constitution, free elec- tions, and representative government. It also addresses the occupation’s most striking failure: the inability of the United States and its coalition partners to protect the Iraqi people from the criminals and extremists in their midst. This account is based largely on primary sources that include, in particular, the unclassified archives of the CPA. Because the CPA was a hastily improvised multinational organization, an unusually high por- iii iv Occupying Iraq: A History of the Coalition Provisional Authority tion of its work was, in fact, done on an unclassified basis. Nevertheless, a fuller history of the period will have to await the future release not just of classified CPA documents, but of the much more voluminous material held in Washington and by the U.S. military. A comparable history of Combined Joint Task Force-7 (CJTF-7), the CPA’s military counterpart, would shed further valuable light on this critical period. Perhaps even more important to a fully rounded account of the period will be the development and exploration of Iraqi sources. In its occupation of Iraq, the United States fell far short of the ambitious objectives set out by the Bush administration. This book illustrates how and why. It seeks to evaluate the CPA’s performance not just against the benchmarks set in administration rhetoric but also against the record of numerous other, more or less contemporaneous, efforts at postwar reconstruction and reform. Iraq was, after all, not the first, but the seventh society that the United States had helped liberate and then tried to rebuild in little more than a decade, the others being Kuwait, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan. The United Nations conducted an even larger number of nation-building missions over this same period. Iraq was among the largest and most challeng- ing of these efforts, but it was not the first such attempt and will not be the last. It is useful, therefore, to judge how American efforts in Iraq stack up against other attempts to reform and reconstruct societies emerging from conflict. The authors would like to thank all those who participated in interviews, reviewed early drafts of this work, and, in many cases, did both. These include Robert Blackwill, Lakhdar Brahimi, Doug- las Brand, David Brannan, L. Paul Bremer, Andrew Card, Scott Car- penter, Keith Crane, Catherine Dale, Douglas Feith, David Gompert, Jeremy Greenstock, Terry Kelly, Patrick Kennedy, Roman Martinez, Clayton McManaway, Frank Miller, Meghan O’Sullivan, Joshua Paul, Andrew Rathmell, Charles Reis, Ricardo Sanchez, Omar al-Shahery, Dan Senor, Matt Sherman, and Olin Wethington. The authors would also like to thank Nora Bensahel, Steve Simon, and Dov Zakheim for their careful and thoughtful reviews. This research was sponsored by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and conducted within the International Security and Defense Preface v Policy Center (ISDP) of the RAND National Security Research Divi- sion (NSRD). NSRD conducts research and analysis for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the Unified Combatant Com- mands, the defense agencies, the Department of the Navy, the Marine Corps, the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Intelligence Community, allied foreign governments, and foundations. For more information on RAND’s International Security and Defense Policy Center, contact the Director, James Dobbins. He can be reached by email at [email protected]; by phone at 703-413- 1100, extension 5134; or by mail at the RAND Corporation, 1200 S. Hayes Street, Arlington, VA 22202. More information about RAND is available at www.rand.org. Contents Preface ............................................................................. iii Figures ............................................................................. xi Summary .........................................................................xiii Abbreviations .................................................................... xlv CHapTER ONE The Origin