Military Review English Edition May-June 2016 | Page 50

(Photo by Ahmed Saad, Reuters)

People shout slogans during a demonstration against the poor quality of basic services and power outages, and call for the trial of corrupt
politicians 2 October 2015 in Baghdad, Iraq.

Conclusion
Though the American occupation of Japan was
generous and constructive toward the Japanese people,
the successes of the American occupation of Japan
nevertheless mostly stem from the formative socio-cultural characteristics of the Japanese people, as extensively chronicled in Japanese history, and the resulting
efforts of the Japanese themselves. Prior to World War
II, Japan was a developed country moving toward
modernization that for nearly two decades starting
in the early twentieth century tragically fell captive to
radical, militarist leaders who took Japan into what the
Japanese have since called the “Dark Valley.”
With those militarists defeated and discredited,
Japan was able to take advantage of a battered but
knowledgeable and capable Japanese bureaucracy at
all levels, well-educated and motivated workers, and
a favorable international environment to forge the
Japanese “economic miracle,” both during and after
the occupation.
Those factors did not exist in Iraq. It was not a fully developed industrialized country before Hussein’s
dictatorship, and what infrastructure it had, for instance, was ravaged by Hussein’s wars, his neglect, and
finally, the sanctions of the post-Gulf War decade.
As just one example, while I served in the CPA, we
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rarely met our electrical output goals. The national
hodgepodge of electrical grids the occupation inherited from the Hussein regime was in much poorer
condition than almost anyone had realized before the
war. But even as we were consistently laying new wire
in an effort to build the infrastructure for restoration
and modernization of Iraq as a whole, the lack of a
sense of civic responsibility in many sectors of the
Iraqi populace and economic desperation combined
with poor overall security to protect rebuilding efforts
continually blocked progress; as new electrical lines
were strung, they were quickly brought down by
thieves who stole from them the copper wiring later
sold in Turkey.
Also, prior to the war, Iraq did not have a reliable corps of public servants or state organizations
dedicated to serving the entire Iraqi people, and did
not have a population with a strong sense of national identity reflected in loyalty to the common nation-state. It rather was a state riven by long standing
ethnic and religious divides. Nevertheless, either due
to inexcusable ignorance or tacit dereliction in rejecting the counsel of experts who knew better, we went
into the occupation with much less planning and coordination than we did for Japan. Moreover, as a final
point, we spent much less time there than in Japan in
May-June 2016  MILITARY REVIEW