Full Release - IRmep

.
. Att HI;FORHATION CONTAlNED '.
~IN IS UNCLASSIFIED' 0'
~ 07,29-2010 BY 60324UC baw/s~~ ~
, ~
~SOUBOB
--- .~ ,By RichardLeiby
". '.
t,
"Tb.eir
corruption,"
corruption
declares
isour
. a remarkably candid
insider's assessment
ofalleged kickbacks, patronage
and other woes pJaguingthe
U.5.-selected provisional
govenunent in Iraq. 'The leaked
memo haSforeign policywOnks
playingaguessing game: Who is
the importantIraqi officW
desch1>edasa'1tappydnmk"?
Who is theKurdish politician who
seems to be actingoutapartin'
11leGodfather"? .
Penned byaPentagon adviser
attached to the Coalition
Provisional Authority, the chatty
March memo offersa series of
observationsand suggeStions after
several months in Iraq as the· ' .
author heads into non-goVernment
life. "Despitethe progress evident
in the streetsofBaghdad, much of
whichhappens despite us rather
than because of.us. Baghdadis have
an uneasysense that theyare ,
heading toward civil war," the
memo reports. Peopleare
stoekPiliJ)gguns, the'author saYs,
..and "CPAis ironicalJy driVingthe •
• weapons..market: Iraqi police sell .
their19st' U~S.-6Upplied Weapo~ on th~ black
market; tJterare promptly resupplied."· •
The~ was.thesubject ofa storYdistributed
lastwee1Cby the AssociationofAlternative'
Newsweeklies (aan.org): While the nameS of
certainIraqifigUres andthe memo's"recipient
were redacted, the missingname that Prompted
the most speculation Was thai of the auth'or. Three
~urces tell usPte ciitique was ~tten by Michael
,Rubin, a thirty-somethingneOcon intellectual who
• promptly became ascholar at the~kiSh
American Enterprise Institute ~t re~to
t~ By GARR~ TRUDEAU • •
Speak, Memger
......!!!II!I!II!.....---.......
s
TUESDAY, APRIL 2,1, 2,00+
Did Michael Rubin, left,
write the warning about
conditions In Baghdad?
He isn't saying.
Washington. 11lesky is'not falling" in.
Iraq; he wrote early this month for
National Review Oliline.
In hisarticles and biography, Rubin'
says he served as a CPA political officer for
nine months and previouslyworked on
Iraq and Iranissues while onDefense
Secretary Donald ~feld's staH. N~tiona1
Review Online desCribes Rubin as the only CPA
politi,cal officerin Baghdad "who lived outside the
American security bubble." 'The memo, ~ch ~
mentions continuingelectrical outagesand .
"frequentexplosions, many ofwhich are not.
reported inthe mainstream media," faults U.s.
officials for their isolation from ordinary Iraqis. .
Rubin wouldn'tconfinn or deny that he wrote
• the memo. Lastweekhe told an AEI
spokeswo~ he didn'twantto talk about it, ~d
he didn'treturn our canyesterday.
C3
t '
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