This is a prize-wining expose of the attempt by the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority to rule Iraq from a walled-off enclave in central Baghdad after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. It describes the ill-prepared attempt to build American democracy in the war-torn Middle East, from the risky disbanding of the Iraqi army to such travesties as the man put in charge of revitalizing Baghdad's stock exchange - a 24-year-old who had never worked in finance.
