Id like you to meet my kids ..

While I don't agree with the methods used for hiring, specifically circumventing employment regulations (while perfectly legal although in very poor form), I also don't agree that job qualifications necessarily take precendence over everything else in certain situations (this being one such situation).

For example, let's say you take an experienced accountant who is against most of what the current adminstration stands for. how much progress do you think is going to be made when he or she is spending all their time railing against whatever it is that they don't like about the current rebuilding plan? now multiply that by each and every "qualified" appointee that doesn't see eye to eye with the administration and see how much progress how quickly is going to be made.

Another case in point is the debacle over the new Iraqi stock exchange. The new structure, of which no flaws have been pointed out, was met with great resistance (remember what I said in the paragraph above about resistance) solely because the Iraqis did not want to embrace change... even for the better. The article also doesn't go into any detail of how successful or secure the new Iraqi exchange has been since the CPA left it in their hands. If anything it contradicts itself by first claiming this 24 year old kid with no experience had no business being there, then he restructures the Iraqi exchange with no complaints other than that the Iraqis, who would end up being in charge, didn't want to change anything. It should also be noted that Hallen's first and foremost concern appears to have been protecting Iraqi investors, something the new Iraqi administration seems to be sorely lacking. So tell me again since I seem to have missed it, "where did this inexperienced 24 year old kid (read: Yale graduate) screw things up?" "Why was he the wrong man for the job?"

As for the Iraqi health care system? Heh, one sentence sums the whole thing up... "He (Haveman) approached problems the way a health care administrator in America would". I personally don't care what degrees or accolades Burkle had, you're sorely deluding yourself if you think that anyone who has worked in the US health care industry would be qualified for building an entire country's new health care system. Burkle was lauded as the "single most talented and experienced post-conflict health specialist working for the United States government.". That's nice. That's like saying the most talented and experienced battlefield trauma surgeon would make the best Surgeon General. In fact, Haveman (although a consummate failure) was probably more qualified as having been Michigan's Director of Community Health than Burkle whose specialty was disaster response. Building a national health care system goes a metric shit-ton deeper than disaster response.

The law enforcement failure can be summed up as this... "Despite his White House connections, Kerik did not secure funding for the desperately needed police advisers. With no help on the way, the task of organizing and training Iraqi officers fell to U.S. military police soldiers, many of whom had no experience in civilian law enforcement." Kerik himself claims the same "He said he wasn't given sufficient funding to hire foreign police advisers or establish large-scale training programs." So it's really unrealistic to pin the failure on Kerik's chest. In fact, when Kerik was brought in to replace Gifford (who Kerik thought had the chops to do the job) he stepped back and let him do his thing. Unfortunately, in this scapegoat-needing society we live in, who do we blame? The Bush administration? That's awfully convenient. I'll tell you what, when you get to the bottom of who was responsibile for not authorizing the necessary funds and personnel, I'll be all ears.

As always, I see finger-pointing and administration bashing, but I fail to see any even remotely realistic alternative solutions offered. The fact remains that all sides are viewing this conflict and the rebuilding efforts through none but their own eyes. We are dealing with an entirely different culture. What we believe to be solutions and advancing their civilization they believe to be more trouble than it's worth.

The hardest thing I've ever had to do when training new salespeople is teaching them how to think "money". You take a guy who's never really made more than $500 a week and tell him it's possible to make $1000-$2000 per week if they put in the effort and leave their excuses at the door. They'll say they believe it all day long but the sad bottom line is that it is nothing more than a fantasy to them. They've never lived "money" and they never will unless or until they change their way of thinking. There is an entirely different thought process going on between the guy who brings home a few thousand dollars a week and the one who's really content with a few hundred.

Until the Iraqi people change their thought processes there will be no marked progress in Iraq. We can tell them what it's like over here but until their living it they will never truly believe it (and remember, they're not even as backwards as other countries in the region). The most important thing we can do in Iraq is start with their education system. Within a single generation we can make serious advances and empower the people of Iraq like they've never been empowered before (and it can be done without sacrificing their culture). The problem is that that timeline is too long for everyone over here to conceive of. We want quick fixes and we want heads on pikes from whoever is in charge and not accomplishing our unrealistic fantasies.