ABSTRACT
Shortly before US administrator Paul Bremer hightailed out of
Baghdad in June 2004 following the furtive wee-hours transfer of
power to the Interim Government, he defended his tenure as
American Administrator. “Iraq has been fundamentally changed
for the better,” he insisted, with the country now on a path toward
democracy and “an open economy.” “Among the biggest accom-
plishments,” he suggested to The Washington Post, “were the low-
ering of Iraq’s tax rate, the liberalization of foreign investment
laws, and the reduction of import duties.”1 This seemed a brazen
piece of face-saving given the growing disaster in Iraq: gun battles
raged daily, the number of insurgents burgeoned, the death toll
mounted on all sides, and electricity and potable water flowed
unreliably while the Tigris and Euphrates became sewers.
