Green Zone Review - Imperial Life within the Emerald City Audiobook

There have been many books written about the war in Iraq. Many pass judgment and take positions about the war, however, Rajiv Chandrasekaran takes a different angle in his Green Zone audiobook called the Imperial Life within the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone. His is well told story and interesting narrative on the Americans who came to Iraq after the war. In what I call the Green Zone audiobook, he identifies key mistakes made by the Coalition Provisional Authority and profiles a few of the primary figures, and he goes into the experiences from the low level staffers who made up the majority of the Coalition Provisional Authority. This audiobook is an essential addition to the public's knowledge about America's place in Iraq.



Since the book is written from a very first individual perspective, Ray Porter's audiobook narrative is smooth and flowing. Clocking in at just over 10 hours the Green Zone Audiobook is a fascinating performance.

Interspersed with the chapters on the Coalition Provisional Authority 's efforts are vignettes on life inside the Green Zone. Some are amusing, some identify the political influences with the staffers, and others discuss some of bizarre decisions of the Coalition Provisional Authority. Throughout the course on the narrative, Chandrasekaran identifies a number of issues that got in the way of the Coalition Provisional Authority goal of restarting Iraq. First, little post-war planning was done by the Department of Defense and Department of State, and when it came to plan, political tensions were dominant. Second, the dismissal of the Iraqi Army led to trained soldiers without jobs who could have become the backbone of a Iraqi security force, but were left to join the insurgency. Third, the people that were selected to staff the Coalition Provisional Authority have been generally quite young with minor or no real experience; with many selected based on who they knew and who they supported politically. Eager to go to Iraq out of patriotism and adventure, most only stayed 3-4 months, producing making it difficult to plan and execute the rebuilding program.

A major issue was the existence of the Green Zone, which was a self-contained American city in the middle of Baghdad. Travel outside the Green Zone just didn't happen and if it did only personnel who absolutely had to enter Baghdad could go. Reporters like Chandrasekaran, however lived by a different set of rules. They could live outside the Green Zone and could travel at will across Iraq. Since they didn't know what was going on beyond the walls of the Green Zone, the Coalition Provisional Authority had difficulty creating successful policy decisions. Lots of ideas that sounded great on paper didn't perform well outside the Zone.

Finally, the Coalition Provisional Authority leadership thought that they could just import American ways of doing business, finance and governing and that using them in Iraq was the finest solution. As we now know, American ways were did not work as well for Iraq.

Imperial Life is mostly about Chandrasekaran's observations on the lives of folks within the Green Zone and how they impacted post-war Iraq rather than a detailed history. Chandrasekaran does not force his views upon the listener, but rather lets the listener to make the judgments for themselve. He focuses on his experience and the things he saw while he was in Baghdad, and it makes for a solid and relevant story that is well read Ray Porter.