Paul Krugman: The Green-Zoning of America

The New York Times

Monday 05 February 2007

One of the best of the many recent books about the Iraq debacle is Rajiv Chandrasekaran's "Imperial Life in the Emerald City." The book tells a tale of hopes squandered in the name of politicization and privatization: key jobs in Baghdad's Green Zone were assigned on the basis of loyalty rather than know-how, while key functions were outsourced to private contractors.

Two recent reports in The New York Times serve as a reminder that the Bush administration has brought the same corruption of governance to the home front. Call it the Green-Zoning of America.