tikistitch

One new years rez is to post more about the bookses we're reading this year, because of course we don't spend enough time blogging!!!

So, we'll have to get up a proper review of Here, There and Everywhere soon, but first, we're currently in the thick of Rajiv Chandrasekaran's amazing Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone.

We've kind of been regarding Iraq war books as the broccoli of our reading list: full of vitamins and essential nutrients, but where's the chocolate-coated Pratchett? Iraq books are depressing. Like this war is depressing. If you're looking for a good summary, there are a number of good ones (go check Amazon), and we can personally recommend Ricks' Fiasco, but you'll be huddled on the couch listening to your Patsy Cline CDs for days and days afterwards.

Chandrasekaran's book, however, is something else. Still heartrending and frustrating, yes, but filled with so many just surreal gems like.... Well, let's give an example. It's back at the Mission Accomplished phase, and the interim reconstruction team has just landed in Baghdad.

Back at the Palace, [Interim Minister of Industry and Minearls Timothy] Carney was becoming increasingly dispirited. ORHA [Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance] seemed to be a mess.

Part of the problem was that the military did not appear to care about helping ORHA, whose civilian staffers needed more amenities than the average grunt. Carney and other veteran diplomats deemed showers and laundry facilities essential. They had to meet Iraqi government workers who, despite the privation of postwar Baghdad, were showing up at ministries dressed in suits and ties. But water was not always flowing in the palace. Clothes handed over to the military's laundry service, run by Kellogg, Brown & Root, a Halliburton subsidiary, were returned after two weeks, if at all. Instead of finding a laundry in Baghdad or hiring Iraquis to wash items by hand, KBR sent the garments to Kuwait.

Yes, you read that right. Halliburton was sending their laundry to Kuwait. Around 700 miles round trip. Though a war zone.