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The Al-Sadr Uprising and the Governing of Iraq
Cornell University Press
September 2005
252 pages ISBN: 0801444519 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Memoir
A former paratrooper in the British Army with extensive
experience of conflict and post-conflict management in the
countries of former Yugoslavia, Mark Etherington had just
completed an M.Phil in international relations at Cambridge
University in 2003 when the British Foreign Office asked
him to assume the governorship of Wasit Province in
southern Iraq on behalf of the Coalition Provisional
Authority or CPA. Etherington established a small team in the provincial
capital of al-Kut on the banks of the Tigris in order to
begin the process of reconstruction—both political and
physical—of a province with a predominantly Shi’ia
population of 900,000 and a long border with Iran. The province was plagued by poverty and beset by social
paralysis. A demoralized and often corrupt police force was
incapable of imposing the rule of law. Ba’ath party
functionaries had been purged, local municipal authority
was weak, and basic services were lacking. More challenging
still was an escalating armed insurgency by the followers
of Moqtada al-Sadr that would culminate in a sixteen-hour
firefight for control over the CPA’s base in Kut. This gritty and compelling firsthand account of post-
conflict Iraq describes the turmoil visited on the country
by outside intervention and the difficulties faced by the
Coalition in fashioning a new political and civil
apparatus.
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