Abstract

Hold Bush to His Lie

The author argues that the U.S. government's outline for the political structure in Iraq is doomed to failure if it is not supported by the Iraqi people. If you believe the White House, Iraq's future government is being designed in Iraq. If you believe the Iraqi people, it is being designed at the White House. Technically, neither is true: Iraq's future government is being engineered in an anonymous research park in suburban North Carolina. On March 4, 2003, with the invasion just fifteen days away, the United States Agency for International Development asked three US firms to bid for a unique job: After Iraq was invaded and occupied, one company would be charged with setting up 180 local and provincial town councils in the rubble. The "local governance" contract, worth $167.9 million in the first year and up to $466 million total, went to the Research Triangle Institute (RTI), a private nonprofit best known for its drug research. None of its employees had been to Iraq in years. At first, RTI's Iraq mission attracted little public attention. No more. It now turns out that the town councils RTI has been quietly setting up are the centerpiece of Washington's plan to hand over power to appointed regional caucuses--a plan so widely rejected in Iraq it could bring the occupation to its knees. Washington's hold on Baghdad is growing weaker by the day, while the pro-democracy forces inside the country grow stronger. Genuine democracy could come to Iraq, not because Bush's war was right, but because it has been proven so desperately wrong.