An Iraqi reporter interviews an Iraqi man in central Baghdad on March 11, 2008.
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[Military leaders] had assumed that they would turn up in Baghdad, Saddam Hussein would be overthrown and there would be a group of Iraqis waiting to take over. Some of them would be these exiles and others would be Iraqis from within and that there would be a smooth transition. But there wasn't. There was complete chaos. People were looking for a way out of the chaos and the Americans didn't have any better ideas than the average man on the street.
On the unmet expectations of the U.S. presence
In the Middle East, ironically, among people who distrust and maybe even dislike America, they also have an incredibly high opinion of what America can do. The same people — I've interviewed these kinds of people over and over again — the same people who say "Death to America! Death to George Bush!" — want to know why within three weeks, why the electricity wasn't completely restored to Baghdad because after all it was America. If America couldn't fix everybody's problems in the first 5 months of the end of the war, it really doesn't matter that 5 years later many of those problems remain unsolved. By this point, people have stopped marking their calendars to see how long it's been since the fall and to measure America's performance against a calendar. People don't think like that. People vote with their feet.
On Iraqi refugees and lost talent
Most of those who have the means or the ability to leave the country have left. By that I mean the entire intelligentsia of the country doctors, architects, engineers, businessmen, people with money or with university degrees that they can use or with family connections. You had an exodus of real capital because people have left with their life savings, all of which are now sitting in banks in Jordan and Syria. And you also have a drain of intellectual capital, which is a much bigger problem. The people who've left are the exact kinds of people Iraq needs to rebuild itself. You need to have your doctors, engineers, university professors to rebuild your country from chaos. Those are the people who have fled.
On how to succeed
I don't know if there is a formula. I think the problem is that people have been pursuing formulas. Both the American government, the American military, the Iraqi politicians, the elected leadership there have been caught up in finding formulas. How many Shi'ites in cabinet? How many Sunnis? Should a Sunni be president? Should a Shi'ite be prime minister? These kinds of sectarian mathematics don't work. They didn't work in Lebanon, they won't work in Iraq. I'm looking for straws in the wind. I'm looking for actual improvements where they can be measured. If people are coming back, you can measure that.
On the refugees who return
Most people come back because they've run out of money and they just don't have a choice. The people leaving still outnumber those coming back, which is a bad sign. It means that people don't have any expectations for these improvements to be sustained.