Slate: The CPA's Multiple Personality Disorder

You absolutely will not believe this. This Administration cannot -- CANNOT -- do any goddamned thing without massively screwing it up.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2099897/




The CPA's Multiple Personality Disorder
Conflicting accounts about the authority's status are helping it shirk accountability rules.
By Eric Umansky
Updated Tuesday, May 4, 2004, at 10:10 AM PT

While everybody is wondering who will take the reins—at least symbolically—in Baghdad come June 30, there's another, more timely mystery in play: Exactly what kind of entity is running Iraq now?

The Coalition Provisional Authority, Proconsul Paul Bremer's outfit, is in charge, of course. But what, bureaucratically speaking, is the CPA? A new report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, posted online by the good-government folks at the Federation of American Scientists says, "It is unclear whether CPA is a federal agency." Noting that its "organizational status is uncertain," the report speculates that the CPA may be a part of the Pentagon (the Army cuts Bremer's checks), it may be a stand-alone executive agency, or it may be an international institution, like NATO.

-- much more, unbelievable --