BAGHDAD -- John Agresto arrived here nine months ago with two suitcases, a feather pillow and a suffusion of optimism. He didn't know much about Iraq, but he felt certain the American occupation, and his mission to oversee the country's university system, would be a success.
Iraq Net article
He'd seen that footage of the fall of Baghdad - you remember - the staged scene at the toppling of the Saddam statue that made it look like the whole city was out cheering the American "liberators", when it was actually just a handful of people and a tight camera angle. He was so encouraged and optimistic that he had visions of do-gooder success that he apparently thought would sail him through his job without the benefit of any real qualifications for it, and without even bothering to learn anything about the country to which he was going!
"I'm a neoconservative who's been mugged by reality," Agresto said as he puffed on a pipe next to a resort-size swimming pool behind the marbled palace that houses the occupation authority.
"We can't deny there were mistakes, things that didn't work out the way we wanted," he added. "We have to be honest with ourselves."
"We can't deny there were mistakes, things that didn't work out the way we wanted," he added. "We have to be honest with ourselves."
It seems Agresto's qualifications for the job were being a professor and having been a working acquaintance of Lynn Cheney, Bill Bennett, and Herr Rumsfiend's wife at various points in his past. He didn't want to read books on Iraq's education system before he went because he didn't want to be clouded by other people's opinions.
"I'd much rather learn firsthand than have it filtered to me by an author." He did a Google search on the Internet. The result? "Not much," he said.
...Some American academics who are familiar with Iraq's university system blame the Bush administration, and Agresto, for failing to secure more independent funding. They said that in choosing Agresto, the White House shunned scholars with greater acceptance in academic circles, many of whom had opposed the invasion, in favor of a conservative loyalist who had spent much of his career criticizing the U.S. academic establishment.
"Had it been someone different than Agresto, the possibility of that would have been so much better," said Keith Watenpaugh, an assistant professor of Middle East history at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, N.Y., who traveled to Baghdad last year to assess Iraq's university system. "The politics of the occupation were so divisive, and the American academy felt so disempowered by the way things were happening, that when such political creatures like Agresto came asking for things, it was too difficult to put aside those politics. If the administration had really been committed to rebuilding Iraq's education structures, they wouldn't have sent Agresto."
...Some American academics who are familiar with Iraq's university system blame the Bush administration, and Agresto, for failing to secure more independent funding. They said that in choosing Agresto, the White House shunned scholars with greater acceptance in academic circles, many of whom had opposed the invasion, in favor of a conservative loyalist who had spent much of his career criticizing the U.S. academic establishment.
"Had it been someone different than Agresto, the possibility of that would have been so much better," said Keith Watenpaugh, an assistant professor of Middle East history at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, N.Y., who traveled to Baghdad last year to assess Iraq's university system. "The politics of the occupation were so divisive, and the American academy felt so disempowered by the way things were happening, that when such political creatures like Agresto came asking for things, it was too difficult to put aside those politics. If the administration had really been committed to rebuilding Iraq's education structures, they wouldn't have sent Agresto."
Mr. Agresto estimated a need of over a billion dollars to restore the looted universities and get things going again, but the U.S. legislators decided $35 million would be enough from the U.S., and he could get the rest from foreign donors. In the end, the $35 million turned into $8 million.
When Agresto saw the damage to Mustansiriya and the nearby College of Technology -- where 3,000 computers and every bit of laboratory equipment were stolen in a four-hour period -- he was shocked. "What the looting did to the capacity to teach was incredible," he said. "The Americans don't want to talk about it because we did so little to stop the looting."
But he still manages to blame the Iraqis.
"They don't know how to be a community," he said. "They put their individual interests first. They only look out for themselves."
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
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