None of the anecdotes are terribly surprising (most were reported in the news), but it's enlightening to see the events arranged as part of a larger narrative that includes US domestic politics, foreign policy, public perception (Iraq and American), etc. Ties everything together rather nicely.

One particularly interesting chapter focuses on the massive push to privatize state-owned industries and abruptly replace Saddam's socialist model with a free market utopia. Most of the state-owned factories were grossly inefficient, overstaffed (government jobs were essentially guaranteed salaries for life) and unprofitable. Official importers were allowed to use the pre-1991 currency rate (~1 dinar = $3US), and the difference between that and the actual rate (~$1US = 2000 dinars) was covered off by the Ministry of Finance.

Now there are all sorts of problems with selling off assets to foreign investors immediately occupying a country, but the team responsible for assessing the factories and preparing them for sale was grossly unprepared for the scale and difficulty of the task. A road to hell paved with good intentions and unrealistic commitments.

Of course, I've always found intricate bureaucratic nonsense interesting, and Imperial Life is full of it. If only there were footnotes.

Worth reading, particularly if you happen to be a bureaucracy/governance nerd.