An Educator Learns the Hard Way

When Agresto saw the damage to Mustansiriya and the nearby College of Technology -- where 3,000 computers and every bit of laboratory equipment were stolen in a four-hour period -- he was shocked. "What the looting did to the capacity to teach was incredible," he said. "The Americans don't want to talk about it because we did so little to stop the looting."

Soon, Mustansiriya was limping back to life. The school, which takes its name from a 13th-century Baghdad institution considered to be the first university in the Arab world, was being rebuilt by Iraqis, who were paid with donations from local mosques and charities. But the professors lacked the funds to replace computers, books and laboratory gear.

Agresto was determined to help. President Bush was preparing to ask Congress for billions of dollars in reconstruction assistance. Universities, Agresto figured, had to be among the most worthy candidates for American funding. He calculated that he could also attract money from an upcoming conference of international donors in Madrid.

After receiving reports from each of the country's 22 universities, whose collective enrollment is more than 375,000, CPA number crunchers estimated that Iraq would need $1.2 billion to "take its rightful place in the world's intellectual, cultural, economic, and political communities."

Agresto and his staff of 10 sent funding requests to the CPA officials who were compiling the administration's aid package. But word came back that the administration would focus its request on rebuilding Iraq's security services and electrical infrastructure. The White House planned to ask Congress for only $35 million for higher education. The rest would have to come from foreign donors.

Agresto put together what he hoped was a persuasive plea for international aid. It included plans for "a nationwide electronic library network" and a "Western-style graduate business school." "We now have the opportunity to make a new start, and to supply Iraq with, for example, some of the best classrooms, laboratories and libraries possible," the CPA wrote in its pitch to donors.

At the conference in October, donor nations pledged in excess of $400 million for Iraqi universities. But none of that money has arrived in Baghdad.

"There was a lot of talk," he said, "but little follow-through."

The same thing occurred on Capitol Hill. The $35 million request was whittled down to $8 million.

At Mustansiriya, where the labs are devoid of equipment and the student union is in a charred building, acting President Taki Moussawi said he has stopped waiting for help from the Americans. "We've had so many promises, so many hopes," he said as he walked through a gutted structure that used to be the president's office. "We don't believe the Americans anymore. We're just disappointed."

Some American academics who are familiar with Iraq's university system blame the Bush administration, and Agresto, for failing to secure more independent funding. They said that in choosing Agresto, the White House shunned scholars with greater acceptance in academic circles, many of whom had opposed the invasion, in favor of a conservative loyalist who had spent much of his career criticizing the U.S. academic establishment.

"Had it been someone different than Agresto, the possibility of that would have been so much better," said Keith Watenpaugh, an assistant professor of Middle East history at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, N.Y., who traveled to Baghdad last year to assess Iraq's university system. "The politics of the occupation were so divisive, and the American academy felt so disempowered by the way things were happening, that when such political creatures like Agresto came asking for things, it was too difficult to put aside those politics. If the administration had really been committed to rebuilding Iraq's education structures, they wouldn't have sent Agresto."

Rethinking Assumptions

At 8 a.m. on the morning of Jan. 18, a white pickup truck loaded with 1,000 pounds of plastic explosives and several 155mm artillery shells exploded at the main public gate to the CPA's headquarters. More than 20 people were killed and at least 60 were wounded. Almost all of them were Iraqis and many of them worked for the CPA.

Agresto, who was inside the palace and heard the blast, assumed that the attack would provoke widespread revulsion at the taking of innocent life, and would rally popular sentiment against the insurgency and in favor of the goals of the occupation.