Joe Wilson claimed that it was inconceivable that he would have been dispatched on his mission to Niger for nepotism reasons (e.g., on his wife’s recommendation) because it didn’t pay all that well and it wasn’t a nice neighborhood, and besides his wife was pregnant.

Odd, innit, that Wilson would claim that he wouldn’t be recommended to visit a country where he knew people, could stay in nice hotels, all on government expense, and a whole lot of folks believed him.

Yet, these are the SAME people who would give credence to Paul Krugman, suggesting that a person going to a war zone, where people are getting their heads hacked off, would be the result of nepotism.

Nepotism must work oddly, in the land of the Left?

One mistake the U.S. made was not putting more emphasis on portable generators. While they don’t offer a solution to power for homes, they do offer a way to keep factories and water-pumping stations going. These beasts are readily available, new and used, in sizes up to 3 megawatts or so. Why hasn’t there been a major program to acquire generators, send them to Iraq, and install them in places where they are most needed?

I suspect the psychology was, “well, it’ll take 6 months to buy ‘em and get ‘em over there, and by that time, the grid will be fixed”…and then, 6 months later, “well, I wish we’d done it 6 months ago, but surely the grid will be fixed in *another* 6 months, so no point ordering them now..”

Right. Installing 2,000MW in new capacity in fifteen months in peacetime would be a wonder.

TedM,

Mr. Cerny seems congenitally incaple of providing a metric for success. He is quite good at failure though. He’s never seen a half-full glass in his life.

First, you continue the ad populorem of drawing a conclusion that the poll results of a poll about the Iraqi opinion of the CPA tells us anything we want to know. If Paul Bremer was running for President of Iraq, it might be otherwise, but it simply wasn’t our intention or goal to ensure a popular continuing presence in Iraq. You might also find it useful to consider some of the other polls, like the numbers for whether they want the US/Coalition to up and leave, or whether they feel the new interim government is legitimate, or whether they feel things are better than they were.

As far as power generation in itself, I’ve seen people assert, in an authoritative tone, that the amount of power generated is slightly more, about the same, and slightly less than before the war. As was pointed out above, the satisfaction with power seems to be much greater in the hustings than in Bagdad, because the Bagdadis are made to share in the limited power. Maybe you think it is a significant criticism that the previously privileged ethnic minority is now suffering equally (although, if so, there are several other US policies of which I’d be interested your opinion.)

In any case, though, it’s a straw man: the CPA’s primary goal was not to be the best Public Service Company in the Fertile Crescent. The goal was to take a country in which the previous fascist thugocracy had been eliminated, prevent its being taken over by civil war or a new bunch of thugs, and turn it over to a government in which there was a reasonable probability to develop a real popular government.

Complaining that things didn’t go as well as they might have is one thing; claiming that the CPA was a failure suggests either ignorance, or malice.

You don’t seem ignorant.

You might also, with a little exploration, find John Dos Passos’ articles about the occupation of Germany; the Occupation Government wasn’t very popular there either. Unless you believe it’s therefore a valid argument that we shouldn’t have taken on Hitler, your argument here has real troubles.

Second, yes I do tend to depend on English-speaking Iraqi bloggers. It’s not a great situation: I’d love to have more sources. However, following the utter demolition of the reliability of most mainstream sources — eg, the calumny that Paul Bremer “snuck out of Iraq” with “no farewell address” — I sure can’t depend on the more conventional media.

I would love to be able to read Arabic and follow things from those sources, but I find that reading English, Mandarin, Spanish, and German seems to have exhausted my linguistic ambitions.

Third, and finally, if you look carefully at those articles by “some guy named Arthur”, you’ll find that some parts of the text have a different appearance. They’re different colors — sort of a red-orange — and underlined.

These are called “links”.

Experienced web-users find these very convenient.

Please, one subject at a time. We were discussing the CPA.

But if you insist, may I suggest that you begin by saying what it would take for you to say– today, or a year, or ten years from now– that the war had been a mistake.

And, if you recall, we had this discussion on a thread some time ago. Now, I’ll only say that we’re unlikely to know in a year.

One of the reasons we get excited by some of the Iraqi bloggers is that it proves not everybody is against us the way the MSM portrays Iraq. I don’t think anyone here at all presumes they speak for all Iraqis. And why wouldn’t we wish to point them out when the Washington Post is famous for finding only those Iraqi’s who are against us. Reuters too. Hey, Omar’s opinions count as well!

I would also posit that the security situation has a lot to do with attitudes. Bremer told the Iraqis he was sorry that it wasn’t under control.