How and when did the CPA legislate?
126 orders, regulations and memoranda between May 2003 and June 2004. Issuance accelerated in May–June 2004 (21 orders, 2.5 a week against 1.6 before), and most orders of this phase have no Arabic text in the archive.
Open the dossier →In what language did the CPA describe Iraq and itself?
None of the CPA’s 126 legal texts calls the situation an “occupation”, while 121 invoke “the laws and usages of war” (the language of occupation law). In releases and briefings, “sovereignty” rose from 11% of documents a month in 2003 to 31% in 2004.
Open the dossier →What did Iraqis get to read?
Before April 2004 every order had its Arabic text in the archive except 2 of 64. From April until the CPA left, 35 orders were issued, 25 of them with no Arabic text in the archive. The CPA’s last orders, many of which outlived it, were not preserved in the language of those they governed.
Open the dossier →Who held the decision?
In 18 of 99 orders the Administrator keeps an explicit power (“the Administrator may/shall”), in 7 the text overrides Iraqi law in force, and 12 contain immunity clauses. Consultation with the Governing Council or the Iraqi government appears in 15.
Open the dossier →Stated figures
The number of police “on duty” in CPA statements rose and fell from week to week in summer 2003: 34,000 → 40,000 → 40,000 → 37,000 → 34,000 → 40,000 → 40,000. Months later one speaker said 60,000 were on the streets and another, the next day, “almost 8,000”, because he was counting something else.
Open the dossier →The archive itself
The archive is not the CPA: it holds what was posted on its website and what was released later. It has dated documents on 440 days of the CPA period, 2,405 undated documents, 1 silences (21+ days) with no order, regulation or memorandum.
Open the dossier →The revolving door between Baghdad and Washington
Ten Americans whom CPA documents (2003–2004) record as its staff, advisers or partners later appear in Washington lobbying records, for Iraqi clients or on Iraq issues. The shortest gap between the two offices is seven weeks; the longest, thirteen years.
Open the dossier →Who whispered in Bremer’s ear?
3,589 memos reached Bremer in fourteen months from 651 writers. Four of them wrote nearly a quarter; the security file changed hands in autumn 2003; Rumsfeld’s voice faded after Saddam’s capture; and the CPA’s lawyers outpaced everyone in the final weeks.
Open the dossier →The Iraqi dollar’s path
Between May 2003 and June 2004 the Development Fund for Iraq received $20.94 billion, 99% of it Iraqi money: oil, Oil-for-Food surplus and frozen assets. The CPA paid out $14.29 billion of it before leaving, most in its last six months. In the same weeks only about 2% of the $18.4 billion Congress appropriated for reconstruction had been spent.
Open the dossier →What did Iraq inherit from Bremer’s orders?
Two days before leaving, the CPA decided in its last order what Iraq would inherit: of 99 orders issued, it rescinded only 10, amended 35 to hand the Administrator’s powers to Iraqi officials, and left 53 untouched, in force “unless and until rescinded or amended by legislation”. The main heir of those powers: the Prime Minister.
Open the dossier →Promise and reality: electricity
The CPA promised six thousand megawatts of electricity by summer 2004. The highest weekly average its own reports recorded was 4,594 MW. As the deadline approached, the deadline itself changed 2 times in its weekly reports.
Open the dossier →The briefing room
348 press briefings and 2,897 questions between summer 2003 and June 2004. Reporters asked about Fallujah and Sadr when both flared in April 2004, and rarely about prisons. Two men stood at the podium most: military spokesman Mark Kimmitt and CPA spokesman Dan Senor.
Open the dossier →What did the CPA’s orders rest on?
122 of the CPA’s 126 legal texts draw their authority from Security Council resolutions. Existing Iraqi law is mentioned in only 40, often in order to suspend it: 37 texts contain a clause suspending or overriding Iraqi law. It is the economic orders that invoke “international standards”, the WTO and the IMF.
Open the dossier →Directory of people and organisations
A directory of 176 names: 94 US and British officials, 52 Iraqi officials and 30 companies and institutions. For each: the number of documents it appears in, its first and last mention, and links to them and to the Lab files that analyse it.
Open the dossier →Iraq as the CPA saw it
Of all the press releases’ references to governorates, Anbar got 5%; of all reporters’ questions’ references, 36%, 7.5 times as much. The CPA talked about Baghdad and the quieter south; reporters asked about Fallujah and Ramadi. The three Kurdish governorates are almost absent from both.
Open the dossier →What the CPA bought, and who won
Between 1 January and 24 April 2004 the CPA’s contracting office logged 1,200 awards worth $414 million, led by security and police. Who won? The reconstruction inspector general’s table names the contractors: of $1,617 million of Iraqi money in it, 70% went without competition, $942 million of it to KBR alone.
Open the dossier →Translation as policy
CPA Regulation 1 says that where the texts diverge, “the English text shall prevail.” Arabic was a copy, not an original. Yet the Arabic copies carry their translators’ fingerprints: the CPA’s Arabic called its first policy “purging Iraqi society of the Baath Party” in 12 legal texts, while Iraq’s official gazette called it “uprooting the Baath”, the name that stuck.
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