Bureaucrats are a boring, dusty, dull, but very necessary evil. They manage processes, and filing, and protocol for governments and business across the planet with means arcane to people of reason, and they usually know when it’s right to use the blue form, and when it’s right to use the yellow form.
They are that necessary layer between the order or directive, and the people who get the actual work done — and hate them as you will, they are needed. During the de-baathification campaign the Sunni-baathist professional bureaucracy of Sadaam’s government was flushed en toto, and the government has been somewhat ineffective ever since.
Now there’s a bill to allow Sunni and Baathists back into government service and the Sadrists are complaining — but in the end it must be done, not only for reconciliation, but also to end the paralysis, hate the idea as you will. The professionals in the old Baghdad bureaus had a pretty much unbroken office tenure back to Babylon, some are needed back to restore order in government management. More from AP.
Does anyone know where I can get a form 122? I think they are blue….
UPDATE: IN BETTER NEWS IRAQ has requested long-term US presence to protect from neighbors — this is great news, as it means bases in Iraq that will add to the stability of the entire region. Story at AP
