Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone

The Washington Post's former Baghdad bureau chief Rajiv Chandrasekaran takes us into the Green Zone, headquarters for the American occupation in Iraq. In this bubble separated from wartime realities, the task of reconstructing a devastated nation competes with the distractions of a Little America--a half-dozen bars, a disco, a shopping mall--much of it run by Halliburton. While qualified Americans willing to serve in Iraq are screened for their views on Roe v. Wade, the country is put into the hands of inexperienced young people chosen for their Republican Party loyalty. This unprecedented account shows how the Coalition Provisional Authority helped fuel the insurgency by ignoring what Iraqis say they need, as the team pursues irrelevant neoconservative solutions and pie-in-the-sky policies instead of rebuilding looted buildings and restoring electricity production.