Bad Days in Basra: My Turbulent Time as Britain's Man in Southern Iraq [Hardcover]

Sir Hilary Synnott (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 2008

This is the story of Sir Hilary Synnott’s time as Britain’s most senior representative in Southern Iraq, from 2003 to 2004, trying to keep the region together as the rest of the country descended in to murderous violence. By turns wryly comic, revealing and heart-breaking, it offers a never seen before glimpse in to the high politics of the occupation. Shuttling between the gilded palaces of the Green Zone and the Coalition HQ in Basra, Synnott had to deal with his American counterpart Paul Bremer's brash indifference to what was going on in the South, the fickleness of his London masters, who could never make up their minds, and the brutal political realities of a country under occupation. Bearing witness for first time to the chaotic fashion in which the coalition was run and the disastrous impact of its policies, Synnott's unique insider account is the most important primary source yet on how Southern Iraq spun out of control. It is also an entertaining and witty portrait of the absurdities of life inside the occupying coalition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A compelling picture of the administrative turmoil after Saddam Hussein was ousted. Hilary Synnott was one of a number of resourceful, determined individuals trying to make order out of chaos in the country, and this book gives an illuminating insight into the role of the British contingent in the South-East and its tussles with the centre in Baghdad. Whether you want to enjoy the tragi-comedy of the story or learn the telling lessons from the mistakes, you can have confidence in this shrewd, balanced and authentic account."- Sir Jeremy Greenstock, former Prime Ministerial Envoy to Iraq

"Unusual, powerful: combining Synnott's experience on the ground with an unusual grasp of what was happening in Washington, London and Baghdad.Clear-eyed, comprehensive, informed by long experience, sensitive to the serious limitations of state-building in the modern age. His voice is at once bold, pragmatic and often very funny" - Rory Stewart, author of Occupational Hazards

"Hilary Synnott was one of the most important players in post 2003 Iraq. He has always chosen to keep a low profile - it is of immense benefit to everyone who cares about Iraq, and the truth about the occupation, that he has finally decided to offer up his testimony, which will be authoritative, and devastating" - Toby Dodge, Queen Mary's College, University of London

''Synnott’s unique insider account is the most important primary source we yet have on how the South was lost…it provides an entertaining and witty portrait of the absurdities of life inside the occupying coalition, a devastating critique of CPA policies and controversial revelations about the real relationship between the two occupying powers, Britain and America.''--Abrar

"Hilary Synnott's ambassadorial account of Bad Days in Basra makes a compelling read." --Glasgow Herald

"Hilary Synnott's very readable book explains what went wrong in the areas of reconstruction and governance in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Saddam and provides useful lessons for how to do it better next … Highly recommended." --The Navel Review

About the Author

Hilary Synnott was the Coalition Provisional Authority's Regional Coordinator for Southern Iraq from July 2003 until January 2004, working alongside his US counterpart Paul Bremer.  Before then he was British High Commissioner in Pakistan from 2000 until 2003, in which role he helped broker the resolution to the India-Pakistan nuclear stand-off of 2002.  He has appeared in numerous documentaries about the Iraq war.  He lives in West Sussex, England.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: I. B. Tauris; Revised and Updated edition (April 15, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1845117069
• ISBN-13: 978-1845117061
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,693,502 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Post-invasion chaos in Southern Iraq, June 19, 2008

By 

Steven A. Peterson (Hershey, PA (Born in Kewanee, IL)) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Bad Days in Basra: My Turbulent Time as Britain's Man in Southern Iraq (Hardcover)

This book can usefully be read in conjunction with Rory Stewart's "Prince of the Marshes" for a view of after-invasion events in Southern Iraq, where the British were responsible. Hilary Synnott, the author of this book, was sent to Basra in 2004 to try to create some sort of structure out of the chaos of the civilian reconstruction efforts. His comments are instructive and, unless one lives in a cave, further supports the observation that the United States was clueless in its studied refusal to strongly think about the country's after-war strategy.

Synnott judges the CPA, run by Paul Bremer, as a flawed vehicle for directing reconstruction of Iraq. Late in this book, he observes (Page 246): "With the benefit of hindsight, it may be judged that much of the Coalition's, and hence the CPA's, considerable effort to introduce a lasting and durable political system in Iraq was wasted." Indeed. The Coalition (a term that I think disingenuous, but that's an issue for another day) was a dismal failure. The situation in Iraq only began to improve after an increase in American military force (the Surge) and an increased activism if the Iraqi government. It reminds me of T. E. Lawrence's statement in 1917: "Do not try to do too much with your own hands. Better the Arabs do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly. It is their war, and you are to help them, not to win it for them." American leaders might better have attended to Lawrence of Arabia's views than allowing Bremer to become a viceroy.

As Synnott notes, the entire CPA process broke down. Cashiering technocrats who knew how to keep the Iraqi machinery of government and service delivery going and dismissing the army--creating a pool of dissatisfied Iraqis--can only be described as foolhardy. There were too few resources in the Basra region (comprising four provinces) to really address key issues. Bremer dictated a Baghdad-centric approach to reconstruction, leaving the rest of the country to its own devices.

Synnott actually believes that good was done, certainly in the Basra area. He also realizes that whatever was done was done without adequate support. His concluding few lines are poignant indeed (Page 262): "But the most lasting recollections are positive ones and reflect the stimulus and satisfaction of working closely with highly motivated people, from Iraq and many other countries, including my own, who sincerely wanted to do the best they could in a task which, whatever its appalling and misguided genesis, they felt to be worthwhile."

In the course of the book, Synnott discusses such central issues as the facts on the ground, how he fought to upgrade unbelievably poor facilities, the military-civilian tensions (which were worked out over time), the continuing political dance with local Iraqi leaders, the wretched planning process developed by the CPA, and so on. There are a series of very helpful appendices to provide context, such as a description of the role and purpose of the CPA effort in the South, the CPA vision statement, the CPA organizational chart.

This is a book providing context "on the ground" in the southern part of Iraq in the period of time immediately following the invasion and during the CPA's effort at hegemony. As such, it provides a sense of the inadequate planning, the almost naive assumptions of the invasion, and the heroic work of those in the Coalition trying to retrieve success from the problems caused by the ill thought out after action from the invasion.

All in all, a useful volume to get a sense of the times described by Synnott.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars MORE THAN THEY COULD CHEW, April 15, 2008

By 

DAVID BRYSON (Glossop Derbyshire England) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Bad Days in Basra: My Turbulent Time as Britain's Man in Southern Iraq (Hardcover)

President Ford uttered the sentence that sums up Sir Hilary Synnott's absorbing narrative here - 'You can't just go around liberating people'. The tale of what happens if you do that with insufficient forethought, planning, resources, afterthought and sense of reality is told to us by a Foreign Office mandarin who brought to his impossible task dedication, loyalty, mental candour and honesty, and top-level experience as High Commissioner in Pakistan when that nation and India, both now with nuclear arms, faced each other in a tense standoff.

This book is hot off the press, published only this year. It complements Rory Stewart's Prince of the Marshes, but it approaches the story of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in southern Iraq from a different angle and tells it in a different manner. Sir Hilary's responsibilities were wider, and his account is not a chronicle. It deals with the issues under subject-headings, and broadly I think it's fair to say that each successive chapter takes a higher-level overview than the last, culminating in the final Summary, the kind of overall assessment that British ambassadors were once expected to provide of their tours of duty. Synnott assesses his own mission as a failure, but by no means as a comprehensive failure. There was no way of being successful under the circumstances. The British army receives considerable commendation from him, but on the civilian side such partial achievements as there were he attributes to specific individuals. As for his own part, he tells us what he did and why with Thucydidean reserve and leaves it to us to judge.

If you are in a hurry, I suppose you could go straight to the Summary, but this book deserves to be read all the way through in the author's sequence, because to a lay reader like me Synnott seems to convey the feel and sense of the posting vividly. His style of writing changes as the material gathers weight, but it is without pretentiousness, indeed I found the volume a page-turner in its clarity and focus. In the early chapters he is not even a particular stickler for the final refinements of syntax or even now and then grammar, and he has some engaging locutions of his own -- 'stood no hope' 'revealing an American accent' 'the light became darker'. What he has in spades is readability throughout, and considering the authority he commands that is a blessing. His final conclusions could not be expected by now to be unique, but they are best read in the light of some of his perceptions along the way, which are illuminating in the extreme. Some of his encounters must have been shattering to him at the time and they are still startling now, but in the bigger picture they are almost anecdotal. He had a standup barney with an Australian whose mantra was 'no subsidies' and who met the point that, after certain farmers had used up what should have been the seed-corn there was liable to be unrest threatening security if they were not given a fresh supply, with the insight that security was not his concern. He cites as his lowest point in the assignment a meeting of the regional heads at which they had been invited by Bremer to submit their reactions to a certain plan. Having so submitted they were then told unceremoniously by Bremer that the plan had been presented in Washington, so that was that. This kind of thing sounds like more than passing detail, except that the Australian turned out to have interests that were financial more than ideological, and that Bremer's plan had been not just presented but rubbished in Washington, so that discussion of it was to that extent academic albeit that Bremer was not coming clean why.

At the next level up are the strategic issues. Blair talked about a 'war' (indeed we all did), but he made no provisions customary for anything known by that term, so what was his concept of the matter really? Gen Sanchez motivated his troops with the devastating insight that the American effort must not fail or the fighting was going to be in High Street USA, and Sir Hilary's palpable contempt for anyone treating his listeners like idiots in this way came over to me all the more loudly for the way he spotlights the statement and leaves it without further comment. Crucial, of course, were the disastrous MBA-style misjudgments of Bremer that produced de-Baathification and disbandment of the army, not to mention the introduction of a market economy to get them standing on their own two feet and all the rest of it. Synnott is fairly laconic about the mentality that could fail to see the likely effect of creating a whole new class of dispossessed, unemployed and armed citizenry who had all the experience there was going of law-enforcement and civic administration. Indeed I should say at some stage that one of the most attractive aspects of his narration is his patrician reluctance to overemphasise the obvious.

Synnott pinpoints lack of resources as his ultimate reason for the failure, and at the time of his assignment I can see his reasons and also understand his statement that armed violence was not the issue in Basra that it was in Baghdad. He does not update these perceptions, and I don't know why not. The well-intentioned strategy of arming the populace against the crooks, gangsters, smugglers and forgers seems in retrospect to have backfired, although it also seems to be what Gen Petraeus is now doing further north, and getting plaudits for in positive-thinking quarters. It could all have doubtless been done better, but what about the overall objective of spreadin' democracy an' freedom in the middle east? Don Quixote rides again, it seems to me, out of Crawford TX. I wanted to hear more about that.

Having opposed this 'war' from day one I actually support Synnott's view that 'liberal interventionism', as in Bosnia, Kosovo and even Afghanistan is here to stay and has to be. However we need to be able to distinguish one case from another and to recognise our own limitations. A complete reassessment of policy is glaringly needed. Jerry, you should be with us at this hour, and I don't mean Jerry Bremer.