TY - BOOK AU - Bremer,Paul AU - McConnell,Malcolm TI - My year in Iraq: the struggle to build a future of hope SN - 0743273893 AV - 414 DS 79.769 B836m 2006 PY - 2006/// CY - London PB - Simon & Schuster Ltd KW - Postwar reconstruction - Iraq KW - Iraq War, 2003 KW - Iraq - Politics and government - 2003- KW - Postwar reconstruction KW - Iraq KW - Insurgency N1 - When Paul 'Jerry' Bremer, a retired diplomat and counterterrorism expert, arrived in post-war Baghdad as 'pro-consul', he was shocked. His hurried briefings in Washington by the State and Defence Departments and the C.I.A. had not prepared him for the devastation, the chaos, and the violence. With security worsening, the Iraqi army having disappeared, no viable local currency, looters running wild, the electricity system down, food supply in jeopardy and factions of Kurds, majority Shia, and the newly dispossessed Sunnis at a political standoff demanding Iraq be turned over to them. Ambassador Bremer struggled to jumpstart the economy while putting the country on the road to democracy. Bremer describes his meetings with President Bush and multiple encounters with Rumsfeld, Rice and Powell in which he pushed for additional funds for Iraq's reconstruction and warned of the dangers of prematurely turning security over to untrained Iraqi security forces and turning governance over to exiles with no plan for a constitution or elections; He describes working with Iraqi leaders on a constitution to protect individual rights and dramatizes the heroic efforts of his staff and Coalition forces to give the long-suffering Iraqi people a measure of peace and hope. Ambassador Bremer's book is vital reading if we wish to understand the immense stakes involved in this war and this troubled region; general N2 - Describes working with Iraqi leaders on a constitution to protect individual rights and dramatizes the heroic efforts of the author's staff and Coalition forces to give the Iraqi people a measure of peace and hope. He presents an account of danger, chaos, and challenge in the Coalition's first year after the military victory over Saddam Hussein ER -