Join Post associate editor Rajiv Chandrasekaran on Tuesday, April 24 at noon ET to discuss the debate in Washington among government, military and intelligence officials over what course to follow in Iraq as the war enters its fifth year.

The transcript follows.

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Chandrasekaran, the author of "Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone," is spending this year on a special assignment focused on chronicling U.S. government efforts to stabilize Iraq.

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Rajiv Chandrasekaran: Good day. Glad to be back with all of you for another Iraq policy chat. Lots going on, from the bombing of the U.S. outpost in Diyala yesterday to the efforts to build walls between Sunni and Shiite communities in Baghdad to the looming confrontation on war spending here in Washington. Send on your questions!

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West Orange, N.J.: Have you read Ali A. Allawi's new book on Iraq? Small world: he is Ayad's brother and Chalabi's nephew. Any comments on it. or on your knowledge of his role in the occupation? Hindsight is wonderful, but were any of the Iraqi exiles more prescient? Did any impart what is now "obvious" beforehand?

Rajiv Chandrasekaran: I have. I reviewed it for The Post's Book World section on Sunday, April 15. I'll paste in the first few paragraphs of the review here and we'll include a link to the whole review. Overall, I think it's a good book with lots of fascinating details. But Allawi, as you'll see below, does make some controversial arguments. One point of fact, though: He's not Ayad Allawi's brother. He's a distant cousin. (I'm not sure of his relation, if any to Ahmed Chalabi.)

"It was almost four years ago that L. Paul Bremer made a decision that may have doomed U.S. attempts to create a new Iraq: The American proconsul issued his infamous order banning many mid-level members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party from working for Iraq's largest and most coveted employer, its government. In the following months, the Sunnis who had dominated the old ruling elite argued that postwar national reconciliation depended on modifying the decree. Meanwhile, leaders of Iraq's once-oppressed Shiite majority insisted on keeping the policy intact. In recent months, desperate to promote peace among Sunnis and Shiites, the Bush administration has reentered the fray, calling for Iraq's Shiite-led government to allow more ex-Baathists to return to their old jobs.

In all of the back-and-forth, nobody of any stature has suggested that Bremer's approach toward the Baathists was too soft. But now, in a compelling, detailed history of the occupation, Iraq's first postwar civilian defense minister makes just that argument. In the first major account from an Iraqi insider, Ali A. Allawi contends in The Occupation of Iraq that one of Washington's principal mistakes was that Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority did not go far enough in dismantling the Baathist structure of Iraq's bureaucracy.

"The CPA did not demolish the state that it had inherited and then start to rebuild it along the lines that it prescribed," Allawi writes. "The unwillingness to treat the Baath legacy for what it was -- a totalitarian state with a privileged elite -- and therefore in need of a radical overhaul, made the CPA reforms essentially tentative and nominal. It was as if a huge, decrepit building had been struck unevenly by a demolition ball that succeeded in inflicting only minor damage to the edifice."

Saying that Bremer didn't go far enough is a striking and controversial argument. Allawi -- a former banker who left Iraq to study at MIT in 1964, lived in exile until 2003, and later served as the country's postwar finance minister -- maintains that Bremer's "blunderbuss approach" to de-Baathification was too focused on high-ranking officials; Allawi laments that Bremer's occupation government did not do enough to root out Baathists and their network of sympathizers from important mid-level positions in the government. Allawi's hard-line views on de-Baathification aren't shared by many of the Americans who have been involved in crafting Iraq policy. There's a growing consensus, even at the White House, that Bremer's policy needlessly alienated anxious Sunnis and helped fuel the insurgency."

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washingtonpost.com: The Insider: A key Iraqi leader argues that America was too timid after the fall of Saddam Hussein. (Post, April 15)

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Chicago: Big fan of your work on Iraq and bravery going over there to cover events, Rajiv! Can you talk about what you hear about the possible origins of the Baath loyalist/al-Qaeda alliance that has emerged (and been cited repeatedly by Iraqi and U.S. officials) that has been so deadly? Apparently it has included some of Saddam Hussein's former top men and men with direct links to Zarqawi and bin Laden. Is it possible some of these relations begin with pre-invasion outreaches to one another?

Rajiv Chandrasekaran: I believe that the connections between Al Qaeda/Zarqawi and the Baathists materialized largely after the U.S. invasion.

hat said, there is some evidence to suggest that Saddam's henchmen did reach out to Islamic extremists shortly before the invasion with the hope of having Arab fighters help battle the Americans; many of them opted not to fight during the three-week invasion and instead decided to participate in the insurgency that began to grow by the summer of 2003. But the real links between the Baathists and the Islamic extremists didn't really start to gel until after the Americans had arrived in Baghdad. Remember that Saddam's Baath government -- with the exception of the months leading up to the invasion -- wasn't all that tight with Sunni radicals. The Baathists saw themselves as largely secular Arabs. There was even a division of his intelligence service that was tasked with spying on Sunni extremists.

It's also worth pointing out that while the Baathists and al-Qaeda/AMZ types are united in their desire to drive out the Americans and battle the government of Prime Minister Al-Maliki, their agendas are not entirely the same. The al-Qaeda/AMZ types also believe in killing Shiite civilians, which many of the Baathists don't agree with. There have been reports of tension between the more secular, nationalist Baathists and the al-Qaeda types in Anbar and Salahuddin provinces. In fact, U.S. and Iraqi government officials have been trying to reach out to some of the former Baathists for help in fighting the al-Qaeda crowd. If we can bring about a genuine split in the Sunni insurgency and get the Baathists to turn on the religious zealots, we might be able to see a decline in violent attacks.

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New York: Is "redeployment" still a strategy that is being considered (removing U.S. troops from urban areas and deploying them in protected bases along the Turkish/Syrian/Iranian borders)?

Rajiv Chandrasekaran: It's being considered by some Democrats but not, at least at this point, by the White House. The administration's current strategy is the Baghdad Security Plan, better known as the "troop surge." If there's a determination by the White House and the Pentagon that the surge isn't working, then perhaps they will consider a redeployment of some forces to the borders, outside the cities and to the Kurdish-controlled north.

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West Orange, N.J.: Does today's tragic loss of nine U.S. troops suggest an Achilles Heel in the "surge," namely the creation of numerous underprotected mini-bases? Iraqi authorities have denounced the "gated community" strategy to quarantine troublesome Sunni blocks, but will it proceed nonetheless? Who originated the idea?

Rajiv Chandrasekaran: Good questions. The creation of these mini-bases, or outposts, is intended to better distribute U.S. forces in troublesome areas, to get soldiers and marines closer to the places they need to pacify. But it also means that they are living and working in compounds that have far less security than the larger "forward operating bases" that the military has built over the past few years.

Anthony Cordesman of CSIS, one of the smartest military analysts around, sent out a short analysis today that stated, in part: "The new counterinsurgency strategy takes US forces out of relatively safe positions and exposes them. It simultaneously gives any hostile faction in their area of operation greater incentives to attack them, while making them more dependent on the Iraqi army and police, and local support, to avoid infiltration and spying that can lead to more effective attacks."

I think you'll see some new security measures instituted for the outposts and perhaps some outposts will close. How that will affect the overall security plan is unclear but it can't help.

As far as the "gated communities," it appears that the construction of the walls will cease for now. Iraqi leaders, including PM Maliki, have come out in opposition to the walls. The new U.S. ambassador in Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, said yesterday that he would respect the views of Iraqi leaders.

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Helena, Mont.: All the Iraqis in positions of influence in the government are exiles, many of whom never lived in Iraq under Saddam. I am no expert, but I think so long as the government of Iraq is headed by people who did not share in the misery of Saddam Hussein, there never will be a stable government. The disconnect between the governors and the governed is just too great. If I were an Iraqi who had lived through the Hussein era, I would not want someone who did not share my misery, who went abroad and lived "off the fat of the land" to come back and head up my government.

Rajiv Chandrasekaran: Some Iraqis do share your view but many others do not. Remember that many of these former exiles who are in key positions in the government now were elected by their fellow Iraqis. Some of the former exiles have done a good job of cultivating support among the population. Those who haven't, among them Ahmed Chalabi and Ayad Allawi, aren't in positions of power today.

It's worth noting that Saddam did his utmost to persecute any and all political rivals in Iraq when he was in power. It would be great if there were a crop of Iraqis who lived under Saddam who were ready and willing to govern today, but those people don't exist. Until new political talent is developed, Iraq will have to rely on Iraqis who lived abroad for at least some of the time that Saddam was in power.

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Ukrainian Village, Ill.: During that long hot summer of 2003 in Baghdad, if the CPA and Bremer could have one "do-over" what would that be?

Rajiv Chandrasekaran: You've got to ask that one of Bremer. But if you want my take, I think the CPA should have taken a very different approach to dealing with the Sunni community. That means not pursuing de-Baathification the way the CPA did and not disbanding the Iraqi army. Iraq's Sunnis needed to understand that would have a future in the new Iraq. Unfortunately, many of the CPA's decisions sent them a message that they had no place in the new government.

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Santa Rosa, Calif.: Rajiv, since your book, "Imperial Life in the Emerald City" revealed how incompetent party sycophants were placed into power in Iraq, lawmakers and others have been finding them buried deep throughout this administration. Do you think your book was the impetus that started this flood? Thanks for the excellent work.

Rajiv Chandrasekaran: I actually don't think that my book is responsible for our growing understanding of how political loyalty has been an important criterion in the selection of personnel for key posts in the Bush administration. It's been disasters (Hurricane Katrina), leaked documents, aggressive reporting by journalists, and the new Democratic majority on the Hill that has been responsible for broadening our understanding of this issue. But I do think some of the material in "Imperial Life in the Emerald City" helps to add another data point in this ongoing story.

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Washington: Whatever happened to Chalabi? And why are all the former presidents and prime ministers of Iraq since 2003 living in England?

Rajiv Chandrasekaran: Actually, Chalabi is spending a fair bit of time in Baghdad these days. (He still has a place in London, though.) Maliki has put Chalabi in charge of "neighborhood security committees." They're supposed to be the Iraqi version of neighborhood watch groups, but some U.S. officials question whether they are--or will become--a new militia.

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Wheaton, Md.: Personally I've always favored the Alice in Wonderland metaphor for how we got into this mess, but I like your Oz motif as well. From the book blurb it sounds like Mr. Bush installed his own "Republican Guard" in Baghdad after Saddam's fall. I'm curious what other issues (besides abortion) prospective CPA employees were quizzed on before they could help out there. Could you expand?

Rajiv Chandrasekaran: Some were asked if they were members of the Republican Party and whether they voted for George W. Bush in the 2000 election.

Here's a few paragraphs from Imperial Life:

Mounzer Fatfat, an American citizen of Lebanese descent who applied to be the senior adviser to the Ministry of Youth and Sport, told me he was asked during his interview at the White House liaison's office whether he was a Republican or a Democrat. When he replied that he was a registered Democrat, he was asked for whom he had voted in the 2000 presidential election.

"I avoided the question," Fatfat said.

Fatfat, who is a Muslim, was then asked about his religion. "I told them I was a Muslim but that I'm married to a Christian. My children go to Catholic schools. I went to a Catholic school," he said.

Fatfat had a doctorate in youth policy studies. He had worked for the United Nations for four years as the minister of youth and sport in Kosovo. He also had the support of a Republican congressman from Pennsylvania. In the end, Fatfat got the job. But he was subjected to five separate interviews at the Pentagon. Most staffers had just one.

When he arrived in Baghdad, his faith once again became an issue. "One of Bremer's top aides asked me what my religion was. When I answered, he was surprised. 'Oh, you're a Muslim?' he said. 'But you're not, like, a terrorist are you?'"

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Toronto: Further to the Allawi argument, we don't get much reportage on the functioning of the Iraqi government. It would seem that whatever de-Baathification Bremer left undone is being finished under the new regime, although some announcements to the contrary came out recently. One worries that most of the technocratic elite, which was Sunni, is voting with its feet. Do you have a sense of the current and potential effects of Sunni brain drain?

Rajiv Chandrasekaran: I think the effects of the outflow of Iraqis is very significant. The technocratic elite, as you note, is predominantly Sunni, but not exclusively so. They are also predominantly secular and politically moderate. They are the very people Iraq needs right now if the country is to build a stable, moderate, secular-leaning central government that includes Sunnis and well as Shiites. The more educated Sunnis that leave, the harder it will be to establish the sort of moderate coalition that the White House so desperately wants. What will be left will be a bunch of extremists on both sides.

As for de-Baathification, it appears that efforts to roll back elements of Bremer's policy are stuck because Grand Ayatollah Sistani opposes any changes to the law. If he says no, it won't happen.

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Lawrence, Kan.: Could you give me a feel what it was like to report from Iraq in the early days after the invasion. What was your freedom of movement? Could you say, jump in a car and drive yourself to Fallujah and cover a story in June 2003? And was there one moment or situation that made you and other reporters change to the more secured form of reporting we see now?

Rajiv Chandrasekaran: Let me reprise a few paragraphs from a piece I wrote for Stanford Magazine in late 2004, when I returned from Baghdad:

When I arrived in Baghdad on April 10, 2003, the day after U.S. troops toppled Saddam Hussein's government, I could go anywhere in relative safety, even to Fallujah and Tikrit. No guards. No flak jackets. No convoys. I could talk to almost anyone, even former Baathists. I scrawled "PRESS" on the side of my car and told everyone I met that I worked for The Washington Post. The inevitable response was a smile and a conversation. After decades of repression, everyone wanted to tell their stories.

During the following months, as insurgent attacks became more frequent, the carefree attitude gave way to a growing wariness. At the time, I was less worried about kidnapping than I was about getting caught in crossfire or being mistaken for a private American defense contractor. I convinced my bosses to buy me a $90,000 armored Jeep Cherokee, which I promptly took to Baghdad's Sadr City slum. Sixty dollars later, the shiny silver paint was sandblasted off and taxi decals were affixed to the sides.

That camouflage worked for a while, but when contractors started doing the same thing, I gave up on the armored SUV and got back in Omar's soft-skinned Mercedes. As the months passed, the danger mounted. In late 2003, I was in the Baghdad Hotel when it was car-bombed. Had the window behind me not been covered with Mylar film, I would have been diced with glass shards. A few weeks later, on a drive back from Hilla, we passed what we thought was a traffic accident. Two cars were on fire. Dozens of people were milling in the road. As we drove by, the mob appeared to be celebrating. When we returned to Baghdad, we learned why: the burned corpses we saw on the road were those of seven Spanish intelligence agents who had been ambushed moments earlier.
By early 2004, my ability to travel had become increasingly circumscribed. When I left Iraq in late September, ending an 18-month stint as the Post's bureau chief in Baghdad, the country was under siege -- and so were the Western journalists there.

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Washington: I'm two-thirds of the way through your book and find it to be very well written and very depressing and disturbing. Please tell me that everything turned out okay for the Pizza Man.

Rajiv Chandrasekaran: I wish ... I got word a few months ago that he had to close. There wasn't even a trickle of customers and the street on which he was located, just north of the Green Zone, has become a common place for insurgents to lay IEDs.

I'm hoping he'll come to the States and open a place in Washington. His food is really good.

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Concord, N.H.: Painfully slowly, Harry Reid seems to be arriving at a talking point that he can sell, and also has the virtue of being true. It's not that the war is fully and finally lost, it's that we have to take a broader and longer view of what "victory" means, and not be trapped by traditional views of military victory and peace treaties signed on the decks of battleships. Why are Democrats (and Americans generally) so distrustful of winning by means other than brute military force?

Rajiv Chandrasekaran: I suppose because unless you have your enemy wave a white flag and surrender, it's much harder to claim that you've won. How will we know when we've won the "War on Terror?" Not if and when Osama is captured/killed. Not if/when Pakistan gets a better handle on its tribal areas. When there have be no attacks on U.S. soil for five years? Ten years? I guess that's why the brute force option seems like the only way to go for some political leaders.

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Pepperell, Mass.: It appears the military is the principal actor in U.S. interaction with Iraq reconstruction. We do not hear of State Department activity in the news, and the CPA and associated bureaucracy you documented in your book is long gone. It this perception true, or is there non-military activity by the U.S. going on in Iraq today (e.g. by the state department), and we just do not hear about it?

Rajiv Chandrasekaran: There is lots of reconstruction work going on in Iraq today that is performed by the State Department, USAID and private contractors working for both agencies. What are they up to? Stay tuned for a story that Karen DeYoung and I are working on....

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Rajiv Chandrasekaran: Thanks for all of the great questions. I'm sorry I couldn't get to all of them today. Save them up and ask them to Tom or Karen next Tuesday at noon. Thanks for joining the discussion.
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