Inside Bush’s Iraq

The project | Iraq | Guardian Unlimited

This is the second part of Rajiv Chandrasekaran's exposé of how the "Coalition" managed Iraq – in this case, by filling important positions in the Coalition Provisional Authority with people loyal to the Bush administration rather than the most talented, with applicants asked who they voted for in 2000 and whether they agree with abortion or not. (In the first part, published yesterday, Chandrasekaran described the "Green Zone" in Baghdad as an island of America in Iraq where food was brought in from abroad and people acted as if the so-called Red Zone was in another world.)

Meanwhile, this article in the LA Times (free registration required; linked from Harry's Place tells the story of one Mark J Daily, a US Army officer killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq in January. Apparently he was a liberal humanist who sought out Nazis on the internet and tried (sometimes successfully) to turn them round, and thought joining the Army would help free the oppressed and save people from genocide. What a waste.