"Imperial Life in the Emeral City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone"

National editor for the Washington Post, Rajiv Chandrasekaran shares his experiences in Iraq's Green Zone during the summer of 2004. The Emerald City was Baghdad's Green Zone, a city built exclusively for American soldiers, which is so luxurious veterans began to call it a 'Little America.' They had every necessity of life there, including continental restaurants, hotels and a newly built hospital, providing a life of luxury every soldier away from home could dream of.

The book discusses the army's life and the efforts of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), the American occupation administration in Iraq, to maintain peace and rebuild the war-ridden country, until the transfer of power to the Iraqi government was complete.

The book also gives an account of the staff of the restaurants, consisting mainly of Muslim-Pakistani and Indian chefs who had to cook pork, Army officials such as John Agresto, appointed to rebuild Iraq's university system, Douglas J Feith, the undersecretary of defense, had to initiate the invasion of Iraq at first, but then called Jay Garner, a retired lieutenant general to take charge of post-war Iraq. Garner's team became known as the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA), or an "Organization of Really Helpless Americans," as Garner's fellow associates called it. Technically helpless and reckless, Garner divided ORHA into 'three pillars' - humanitarian assistance, reconstruction and civil administration. ORHA later had some trouble achieving its tasks because of the indifferences between Pentagon and the State department. The CPA ruled Iraq for over a year- April 2003 to June 2004 and was responsible for law enforcement, economic stability, tax regulations and justified usage of the oil revenue. According to the book, CPA had more than 15,000 employees in Baghdad, consisting mainly of Republican retirees, and was headed by Lewis Paul Bremer III, the last viceroy of U.S in Iraq.

Perhaps the most striking features are the secrets revealed by the book. Chandrasekaran used archives from the CPA's internal documents he had as well as the interviews conducted. Chandrasekaran's humor also stands out and makes it a joy to read, a rare pleasure in non-fiction books. "Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone" is delightful info-tainment which surprises, entertains, informs and forces one to think.