from SLATE:>Although the State and Defense departments are well-known to butt heads, the [Washington] Post fronts a look at how the conflicts between the two in Iraq have reached much higher-than-normal proportions. One of these fights is over the best way to try and jumpstart Iraq's economy. Paul Brinkley, a deputy undersecretary of defense, wants to focus on fixing up dilapidated state-run companies to get people working right away. He has allegedly been called a Stalinist by State Department employees, who say the United States should be encouraging free market reforms instead. The disconnect has gotten so bad that Brinkley barely works with the embassy and has set up his own office and staff elsewhere in the Green Zone.<
so much for the popular media idea that the State Dept. represents the "good guys" (relatively speaking) within the Washington bureaucracy. -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
