Stanford expert says Iraq spinning out of control [View All]

[Kadie]

Stanford expert says Iraq spinning out of control
Lack of security is dooming goals of U.S., he says

James Sterngold, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, April 25, 2004

When Larry Diamond left for Baghdad in January as an adviser to the U.S. occupation authority, he took all the equipment he believed he needed to help construct a hopeful new nation out of the ashes of dictatorship: the academic models he had crafted over the years as an authority on building democracies, and confidence those models would work.

But the jarring reality of Iraq, with its escalating violence and collapsing civic order, forced Diamond to look for a few new tools beyond those listed in the textbooks. When he speaks now of the models for building democratic countries, he stresses a different set of equipment, which he found in short supply: body armor, armor-plated cars, a huge military presence.

The story of Iraq, this onetime optimist believes, is a tale of missed opportunities.

"We just bungled this so badly," said Diamond, a 52-year-old senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. "We just weren't honest with ourselves or with the American people about what was going to be needed to secure the country."

more... http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/04/25/MNGFA6AT1R1.DTL

very interesting article.