OUTSOURCING IRAQ

In early 2003, Jay Garner quietly and quickly began building a nation.

Garner, a retired Army general, had led the rescue of hundreds of thousands of Kurds who fled into the mountains of Northern Iraq after a failed revolt against Saddam Hussein in 1991. In January 2003, he took the helm of the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA). Along with Pentagon planners and staffers recruited from agencies across the government, Garner prepared for a colossal reconstruction effort to follow a new campaign against Hussein.

In the 12 years since Garner left Iraq, he had watched the country go to hell: Agricultural production had been cut nearly in half, infant mortality rates were among the highest in the Middle East, and the electricity grid and sewage systems had been so neglected that large portions of the population lived in the dark and bathed in waste. "It was not a good place to live," Garner said in an interview in early 2004. In the wake of what was expected to be certain military victory, Iraq had to be rescued and rebuilt quickly so its people would view the United States as a helpful force rather than an occupying army. "We were going to ... bring in contractor teams, as fast we could do it," he said. Contractors would handle everything, from training a new Iraqi army to employing locals in construction projects to rewriting Iraq's commercial code. It was an outsourcing unprecedented in size, scope and ambition.