Presents the findings of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, which was formed in 2006 to examine the situation in Iraq and offer suggestions for the American military's future involvement in the region.

Product Description: The billions of dollars expended in Iraq constitute the largest relief and reconstruction exercise in American history. SIGIR's lessons learned capping report characterizes this effort in four phases (pre-war to ORHA, CPA, post-CPA/Negroponte era, and Khalilzad, Crocker, and the Surge). From this history, SIGIR forwards a series of conclusions and recommendations for Congress to consider when organizing for the next post-conflict reconstruction situation. Over the past five years, the United States has provided nearly fifty billion dollars for the relief and reconstruction of Iraq. This unprecedented rebuilding program, implemented after the March 2003 invasion, was developed to restore Iraq's essential services, build Iraq's security forces, create a market-based economy, and establish a democratic government--all in pursuit of U.S. interests in a stable and free Iraq. Did the U.S. rebuilding program achieve its objectives? Was the money provided well-spent or wasted? What lessons have we learned from the experience? Hard Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience, a report from the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), answers these and other important questions by presenting a comprehensive history of the U.S. program, chiefly derived from SIGIR's body of extensive oversight work in Iraq, hundreds of interviews with key figures involved with the reconstruction program, and thousands of documents evidencing the reconstruction work that was - or was not - done. The report examines the limited pre-war planning for reconstruction, the shift from a large infrastructure program to a more community-based one, and the success of the Surge in 2007 and beyond. Hard Lessons concludes that the U.S. government did not have the structure or resources in place to execute the mammoth relief and reconstruction plan it took on in 2003. The lessons learned from this experience create a basis for reviewing and reforming the U.S. approach to contingency relief and reconstruction operations.

When the United States led the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, it expected to be able to establish a prosperous liberal democracy with an open economy that would serve as a key ally in the region. It sought to engage Iraqi society in ways that would defeat any challenge to that state building project and U.S. guidance of it. Eric Herring and Glen Rangwala argue that state building in Iraq has been crippled less by preexisting weaknesses in the Iraqi state, Iraqi sectarian divisions or U.S. policy mistakes than by the fact that the US has attempted-with only limited success-to control the parameters and outcome of that process. They explain that the very nature of U.S. state-building in Iraq has created incentives for unregulated local power struggles and patron-client relations. Corruption, smuggling, and violence have resulted. The main legacy of the US-led occupation, the authors contend, is that Iraq has become a fragmented state-that is, one in which actors dispute where overall political authority lies and in which there are no agreed procedures for resolving such disputes. As long as this is the case, the authority of the state will remain limited. Technocratic mechanisms such as training schemes for officials, political fixes such as elections, and the coercive tools of repression will not be able to overcome this situation. Placing the occupation within the context of regional, global, and U.S. politics, Herring and Rangwala demonstrate how the politics of co-option, coercion, and economic change have transformed the lives and allegiances of the Iraqi population. As uncertainty about the future of Iraq persists, this volume provides a much-needed analysis of the deeper forces that give meaning to the daily events in Iraq.

The concept of international administrations of territory, in which comprehensive administrative powers are exercised by, on behalf of or with the agreement of the United Nations has recently re-emerged in the context of reconstructing (parts of) states after conflict. Although in Kosovo and East Timor, the UN was endowed with wide-ranging executive and legislative powers, in the subsequent operations in Afghanistan it was decided, to principally rely on local capacity with minimal international participation, and in Iraq, administrative power was exercised by the occupying powers. The objectives are however very similar. This work first delineates the origins of the granting of administrative functions to international actors, and analyses the context in which it has resurfaced, namely post-conflict peace-building or reconstruction. Secondly, the book methodically establishes the legal framework applicable to post-conflict administrations and peace-building operations, by taking into account the post-conflict scenario in which they operate. Based on these two analyses, an enquiry into the practice of the reconstruction processes in Kosovo, East Timor, Afghanistan and Iraq is undertaken, to analyse and understand the influence of the international legal framework and the different approaches on the implementation of the mandates. Finally, the book concludes with an analysis of questions on exit strategies, local ownership, the internationalisation of domestic institutions, and the need for a comprehensive approach towards post-conflict reconstruction.

Uses the Office of Personnel Management's Human Capital Assessment and Accountability Framework, which advocates strategic alignment, workforce planning and development, and leadership and knowledge management, to assess the U.S. civilian personnel and staffing requirements for stability and reconstruction operations.