The Iraq War’s Lessons for Fighting Coronavirus
A veteran of Middle East combat and the Treasury Department response to the 2008 financial crisis sees echoes of both today.
On the offensive against Covid-19.
Photographer: Angus Mordant/Bloomberg
Having served on the Treasury Department team that responded to the last financial crisis, I’m experiencing flashbacks to my time in government. It’s not, however, from my experience at Treasury in 2008, but from my time in Iraq in 2004. While the economy was teetering on a precipice during the Great Recession, we never faced issues of life and death. More important, there was clear leadership in 2008, while the constant refrain in 2004, as today, was “Who’s in charge?” In any crisis, it’s leadership that matters above all.
A few months after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, President George W. Bush infamously stood under a “Mission Accomplished” banner at a staged event aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln. I arrived in Iraq several months later as a member of the transitional government, the Coalition Provisional Authority, to coordinate the reconstruction of Iraq’s transportation infrastructure. The insurgency had already begun to spread through Iraq like the coronavirus is now doing through the U.S. It was not mission accomplished.