Customer Reviews

Losing the Golden Hour: An Insider's View of Iraq's Reconstruction (Adst-Dacor Diplomats and Diplomacy Book)

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When I got my MA on US History I had a special class that studied WWII post-war in Europe. At some point in time universities will offer courses on post-war Iraq War. I think comparisons to the two events are valid, although quite different. Not just in the obvious outcome--Europe a success to a certain degree whereas Iraq is just a mess. It remains to be seen, in my view, if the Iraq War will be analyzed as a catastrophe or simply a disaster for America. Will it take ten years or fifty years for America to revover from this?

Spike Stephenson notes that the title is derived from the medical term in which a patient will live or die based on the care he receives during the first hour after injury. Regarding rebuilding a country after a war or disaster, Spike notes there is essentially one year to get things straight. If not, the country will slide back into chaos or war for a variety of reasons, which Spike explains in detail. He also lets you know that he has been doing this for over twenty years, and that there is a tried and true system that works. He gives, in the beginning of the book, examples of those he worked with.

What Spike provides are multiple examples of why the Iraq rebuilding failed. On page 20 he gives the money quote regarding Paul Bremer, ..."for accepting their counsel [the incompetents hired by the CPA], for the arrogance and hubris that seemingly emblodened him to continue on a course that was so obviously misguided, and for ignoring fifty years of US experience in post-conflict nation building."

Page 42 is really why we get in these messes. Yes Rumsfeld was an ass and arrogant and always treated his subordinates like garbage. Unfortunately, there were many like him sent to Iraq. I remember officers like this former former general he describes, people more interested is putting down staff and being contrary rather than getting the job done. The issue involved hardened small housing rather than trailers, which were bought overseas (contracting again through the connected). The general. more interested in being a jerk, brushed aside the arguments for small houses with refuge areas (they were now receiving mortars and rockets) with the comment "we'll go with the trailers." This, in case anybody forgot, was why we had fragging in Vietnam.

Pages 67-70 seem to show how the fraud in contracting went through Bremer and the other politically connected. Spike is very cautious how he explains this as I think he should be.

Page 159 gives a good story about another corrupt jerk, Ari Fleischers brother.

I think if you want to know what goes on in the Bush cabinet you just need to look at the story on page 115-118. This regards the import of generators. Spike was hounded by Rice's people virtually every day, something he states he did not need, about when the generators would arrive. I think the reason for this is that in an administration like Bush's, the person who brings in "good news" gets the pat on the head, whereas the bearer of bad news is shunned and made fun of by Bush. You can read about this in plenty of books. What Spike shows, without explaining it as I have, is that these psychophants make life miserable for the people actually doing something.

If you really think Bush is interested in "democracy," just read page 131. It was quite evident that his people were trying to influence the Iraq elections. This really is a creepy story.

My only complaint with the book is the assessment, on page 25, of the Shebaa Farms in Lebanon. This is a legitimate complaint of Hezbollah, and I would suggest people read Wikipedia on UN Resolution 425 and what the issues are. Syria does not recognize Lebanon and Shebaa really is quite difficult to resolve or dismiss easily. Also, Israel had no problem taking topsoil from Lebanon during their occupation and trucking it to Israel.

As I stated, this is the type book you need to study. I think this will hold up nicely when the dust settles and historians can analyze these events the same as post-war Germany.

I heard the author speak at the Army War College Strategy Conference organized by the Strategic Studies Institute (8-10 April 2008) and was so impressed I ordered his book on the spot. As a person, this man strikes me as supremely professional, competent, worldly, down-to-earth, and above all, without ego. This is a courageous individual that has specialized--only a handful can say this--in delivering aid into combat environments.

The book is relatively short--under 150 pages--well written and easy to read. Here are the highlights from my flyleaf notes:

1) 28 years experience in stabilization & reconstruction, seven failed states behind him that he tried to help

2) Foreword of the book is by Rich Armitage, a former Navy Seal that I have found to be a speaker of truth to power (one reason why the Bush Administration hated him)

3) Pentagon (Rumsfeld) blew it Part I. They closed the Department of State and the Agency for International Development (AID) out during the critical year before and year after the elective invasion and occupation of Iraq.

4) Pentagon (Rumsfeld) blew it Part II. They created a Pentagon version of AID run by a General that had no clue about the more nuanced community based assistance program, who blew his whole wad on heavy duty infrastructure projects instead of the community water, electricity, food, and sewage treatment and health security needed.

5) Pentagon (Rumsfeld) blew it Part III. Instead of embracing skilled experts from AID and elsewhere, the Pentagon staffed their program office with ideologically-pure puppies, enfants terrible whose only qualification was a resume at the Heritage Foundation and the ability to chant the mantra, "God Blesses Dick Cheney, Dick Cheney IS God."

MOST IMPRESSIVE to me was the author's elegant discussion of how stabilization must be secured BEFORE reconstruction can begin.

The author points out that at 18 billion and up this was the largest RECONSTRUCTION project since the Marshall Plan (explicit throughout the book is the fact that the US Army, handicapped by Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz, never, ever, achieved sztabilization.

The author is kind to Wolfowitz. In his words, Wolfowitz was a decent man who fell sway to the "swan song" of Chalabi and the other knaves representing Iran and one slice of the Iraqi exiles.

The author is also careful to point out that he saw no villany, only incompetence and hubris, during his time in Iraq. [There is a superb recent memo, look for it at Earth Intelligence Network, on the utter incompetence of Foreign Service Officers and Pentagon "temp hires" to manage any kind of program.

Early on we learn that the Pentagon's program office for Iraq is totally dysfunctional, mockingly called the "Jonestown" of Iraq (where everyone drank the poisoned kool-aid).

The author slams Paul Bremmer as a good man who paid his dues in traditional diplomacy and had absolutely no clue how to manage an occupation presence. The author is careful to note that Bremer was an enigma, personable and competent but not right for the job, and to be faulted for allowing DoD to foist off on him an army of incompetent puppies, each a minor-league ideological hack.

The author is clearly a world-class expert in identifying stabilization first, then reconstruction, and in the latter, focusing on the urgency of domestic security, border control, and accommodating neighbors.

He is devastatingly critical of Admiral Nash (a Sea Bee) focusing on big engineering projects dealing with big infrastructure reconstruction, while completely missing out--not having a clue--on the importance of the less expensive but necessarily more pervasive and localized community reconstruction--rule of law, water, electricity, food, and don on.

He points out that because of ignorance at all levels of the Pentagon "chain of command" that completely excluded State and AID during the critical pre and post "Golden" years, agricultural reconstruction was not funded at all.

He returns to the theme of hundreds of US advisors whose only qualification was ideological insanity, each capable of doing great harm as long as they were within Iraq.

I am VERY impressed by the author's recounting of the logic behind ensuring that AID personnel received hardened cement residences instead of trailers--the cement could be done faster, provided more protection, and was cheaper. The idiot general in charge of housing, on the other hand, went with trailers because he was not a combat general that understood the dangers of loose shrapnel in the night (in Viet-Nam, after each of 10 coups, I would pick shrapnel out of those wonderful French roll-down windows that could stop anything short of an RPG).

Kudos go from the author to, among others:

David Wall of International Resources Group

General Peter Chiarelli of 1st Cav gains huge face here, to the point that he could be a real star at the four-star level in the near term. This is a general that understood and demanded community-level assistance to prevent the need for deaths and bullets.

Fernando Cossich is described as heroic and clearly merits his own Wiki page at Wikipedia.

Ambassador Negroponte gets very high marks from this author, who describes Ambassador Negroponte as forceful in demanding everyone recognize that his arrival represented the END of the occupation, and the beginning of US representation to the Iraqi sovereign government. I was deeply impressed by this portion of the book.

In dealing with rumors and morale, the author found, based on his experience, that transparency and constant accountability was the best.

USAID kept 30,000 young men from insurgency by employing them via various means that did not cause them to be targets.

The military, up to and including General Abizaid, had no clue what AID did or was capable of doing. A Capt as permanent liaison to AID proved to be worth his weight in gold.

During the darkest days, the author discovered that the Pentagon has no evacuation plan, a mandated requirement.

The Pentagon was considerd so very blind, reliant on sources that told them what they wanted to hear, that the CIA Station challenged and mocked the "good news blinders". The author elaborates that the Pentagon wanted to pretend everything was fine, and did not understand that security in a non-permissive environment was something to be managed, not pretended.

The author concludes that we missed the Golden Hour by persisting in occupation and allowing looting and then allowing contractors to spend on security that should have been the precondition for contractors entering the country at all.

The author is careful to praise the contractors. They did what they were asked to do, in a non-permissive environment that the Pentagon allowed to exist when General Shinseki, General Zinni, and so many others had warned in advance, as did Mr. White of the Department of State, of the insanity of going it at all, much less "Rumsfeld Lite."

The author concludes that Iraq cannot remain whole. The Kurds and the Shi'ites have their act together and are already independent, while the Sunnis self-immolate in chaos aided and abetted by US incompetence.

The author himself recommends the following two books:
Blood Money: Wasted Billions, Lost Lives, and Corporate Greed in Iraq
Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone (Vintage)

I put this book down with a sense of reverence and admiration. I knew AID people in Southeast Asia, in Viet-Nam, in Thailand, and elsewhere, including AID people that died in the line of duty. I am now convinced we need a Vice President for Foreign Affairs with complete oversight of State, AID, a restored US Information Agency with the Broadcasting Board of Governors and the Open Source Agency as the two main divisions, and Defense as a reduced power.

Of all the books I have read on Iraq, this is the one that I take most seriously. It is a first-person account, focused on the good side of America. The author is clearly qualified to be director of AID under a sane president and a legal vice president, and I for one think he is one of the very best men in public service.

See also:
None So Blind: A Personal Account of the Intelligence Failure in Vietnam
Who the Hell Are We Fighting?: The Story of Sam Adams and the Vietnam Intelligence Wars
A Pretext for War : 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies
Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq
Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq
State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III
The Bush Tragedy
Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency

This short work covers the USAID effort in post-invasion Iraq from the author's perspective during his tour of duty Feb 2004- March 2005. Having served in Jordan and Iraq at the same period (Nov. 2003-Nov 2004 in Jordan; Dec. 2004-May 2006 in Iraq) as a contractor for a Department of State civilian police development program, I can vouch for much of the author's description of the disorganization and lack of planning effort that occurred during the first 18-24 months post-invasion.

The fact was-- there was no post-war occupation or redevelopment plan. Nearly every post-war planning decision was made on the run and without much thought to the long-term consequences. During the preparation for the invasion, SecDef Rumsfeld prohibited any post-war planning and threatened his military advisors with termination of career if the subject was brought up; likewise, CENTCOM CINC Tommy Franks either refused to plan or simply did not have the foresight to plan post-war Iraq. Thomas Rick's book Fiasco covers that aspect very well and in greater detail than does this work, although both publications address the core issue of lack of foresight at the NSC level and lack of planning at the DoD level.

One issue that does not get sufficient attention to the deficient post-war effort is significant impact of NSPD 36, a two page document signed by the President, that gave full and complete post-war authority to the DoD in all aspects of post-war development. NSPD-36 was obviously a power-grab by Vice President Cheney and SecDef Rumsfeld to exclude the "civilian" agencies such as USAID and Department of State from bringing their experts into the mission- it worked.

In my experience, most of the regular military officers I worked with over the course of 2 and 1/2 years in the mission gave 100% effort in trying to overcome the deficient planning and fix the problem, even though most were way "outside" their expertise in trying to run an essentially civilian mission. The military reservists, particularly those called to active duty through the IRR, were often more of a hinderance and were generally incompetent and incapable of dealing with large-scale planning and redevelopment issues.

The State Department by and large refused to serve in Iraq. The higher level officials of the State Department had generally refused to support the invasion and this anti-war/anti-Bush/anti-DoD antipathy continued for years. Unlike the armed forces where orders were issued to report to a particular duty station, service in Iraq for DoS officials was voluntary. The end result was second and third rate DoS officials, often less qualifed professionally than the military personnel, making a stab at running a national level program. Many DoS positions remained vacant the entire eighteen months I worked in Iraq- no career DoS personnel would volunteer to serve and the Secretary of State would not order mandatory service. And the few that did show up weren't particularly capable or competent.

This work goes more into the personal aspects of trying to work through the various layers of government, both U.S. and Iraqi, while trying to
bring a democratic government to Iraq. The effect of years of Saddam repression, as well as the general level of corruption, malfeasance, and Iraqi incompetence were simply grossly under-estimated by all planners.

Mr. Stephenson criticises the in-country DoD staff as a major hinderance. I take the more neutral position that the military staff, in most respects, were making a good-faith effort at trying to accomplish an essentially civilian mission. The President clearly failed in seeing the enormous difficulties in establishing a functioning, democratic Iraq; the NSC failed the President in giving poor counsel and guidence; SecDef Rumsfeld was the primary instigator for the deficient planning; and the 'non-combatants' at the State Department refused to serve. There is a lot of blame to go around for this five-year long mission.

Insider accounts of Iraq's occupation are a dime a dozen; some are useful, but most are forgettable. Losing the Golden Hour by Stephenson, former director of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Iraq Mission, joins the latter.

Stephenson tells his story with little introspection or self-criticism. He describes receiving the call to deploy to Iraq while in a dentist's chair, his arrival at Baghdad International Airport, and the wardrobe of Coalition Provisional Authority administrator L. Paul Bremer but never transcends his bureaucratic perspective to address how or why USAID failed its reconstruction mission. Venal bureaucrat shines through; expert analyst is absent. Stephenson complains that Bremer did not appreciate USAID's independence as an agency, and he brags of sending home at the first opportunity "free ions" who helped administer USAID projects but did not belong to the agency. Bremer's myriad faults have been amply documented, but why should he not expect USAID to coordinate its actions with mission goals? Would Stephenson prefer that U.S. agencies in Iraq worked at cross-purposes?

Losing the Golden Hour focuses on inside baseball and bureaucratic machinations but does not explain how USAID might better perform its mission. Stephenson acknowledges that aid and development were not his top priorities; instead his priorities were the security of his palace headquarters in Baghdad's Green Zone and the safety of his regional offices, each already in fortified zones. In Iraq, USAID experts drew six-figure salaries and purchased multimillion-dollar armored vehicles so that they might survey their regions of operation but, nevertheless, refused to leave their compounds even during times of tranquility. While, from this reviewer's personal observation, USAID officials watched videos and ate food flown in from Kuwait, 8-year-olds dug wells just five miles away in villages where residents said they had not seen a single U.S. aid official. Perhaps the USAID cannot function in postwar environments. If not, Stephenson might have thought to discuss whether Congress should have funded USAID's Iraq program or instead transferred responsibility to organizations more able and willing to function in an insecure environment, such as the Army Corps of Engineers.

While Stephenson repeatedly refers in passing to USAID's management of $2 billion, he does not mention the Commanders Emergency Response Program (CERP) model. CERP allows local military officials to allocate money to empower local Iraqis to fix sewers, repair generators, and refurbish schools, many of which remained in disrepair despite USAID reporting to the contrary. Here, Stephenson need not commit bureaucratic suicide. Rather, he might have questioned whether both he and his USAID team could have embedded with military units or adopted a CERP-like model better suited to Baghdad.

There is no doubt that the United States squandered the golden hour in Iraq. Had Stephenson discussed how the coalition might better handle reconstruction or USAID might evolve to handle current problems, Losing the Golden Hour would have been a valuable contribution to the literature. Instead, Stephenson has penned a vanity book--albeit one that every congressman should read, if only to understand how USAID is not the organization to turn to when the stakes for U.S. national interests are high.

Michael Rubin
Middle East Quarterly
Winter 2009

I hope this gets the recognition it deserves. Well-written, in-depth and first hand by someone who was actually there for the reconstruction, and knew the intricacies of rebuilding in a war zone.