Wednesday, 31 December 2003

13:40 – Baghdad. Craig had sent me up to the OMB (Office of Management and Budget) to kick their sorry asses into shape but, fortunately for them, their office door was well locked. Also fortunate was me, because the sorry asses I was suppose to kick were in the CPA Ministry of Finance, not the OMB. I can only imagine the depths of my embarrassment, apologizing to an accountant.

I chose to wait a few minutes outside their door anyway, and settled on one of the gilded and overstuffed chairs that are arranged in some of the few remaining open spaces about the palace hallways. The seat was comfortable enough, better than the cheap desk chair in the office, and a fine place to play a hand or two of hearts against the program resident on my PDA. In the midst of unceremoniously dumping the Queen of Spades on the unsuspecting opponent I’ve named after my brother-in-law, a woman completed the stairs and crossed in front of my little living room set, complaining into her cellie, “I am &@$% sick to death of the $%#@@, ^&%$, &%&^%, #$@ bureaucracy at the %$#(@ CPA!”

“Holy $#@*!”, I thought. It finally got to her.

Ah, I remember when Baghdad was cool. Back when the residents were all hard core world travelers in search of adventure, all of three months ago. Now, it’s starting to look like Washington on the Tigris, as more and more D.C. folks follow the money to an increasingly safer city (honest, it’s getting better,… I think). They bring with them the means, methods, and motivations that serve them at home and try to recreate that nurturing environment.

Nurturing the #$@ bureaucracy, that is.

Even with the announced and scheduled demise of the Coalition Government at the end of June, we still expect another thousand personnel to take up residence here within the next few months. Granted, I’m just a lowly consultant, but it seems to me that, if an organization is planning on reducing their presence, the number of people should decline. Ah, but what do I know? There could be concrete reasons why, but I’m guessing not.

Anyway, it seems like this situation really PO-ed the woman on the stairs. My reaction is to dust off my island mantra, “I’m not surprised”. Like the action of government should make sense here? Here of all places!

In Finance, when I finally spoke to them, I learned that the accountants had massaged some data I had sent them to a point where they had massaged the numbers to death and the numbers were no longer correct. Accountants.

Sometimes I sense a subtle mood shift within we ungrateful whiners at the PMO. Fire drill after fire drill has left us with an attitude less gung ho than we when we started. The way Congress and the various agencies in Washington toy with the Supplemental funds leaves us with a demeanor of ineffectiveness. The increasing bureaucracy makes me think that the Americanization of Iraq is almost complete.