[Chandrasekaran WP reporter who wrote _Imperial Life in the Emerald City_. This is from a long on-line interview done by Juan Cole:]
http://www.juancole.com/2006/10/chandrasekaran-interview-part-ii-this.html
<excerpt>
Bremer and his advisers concluded that trying to privatize the oil industry right away would have been too controversial, fueling fears that the United States was out to steal Iraq's oil. As a consequence, they opted to focus on privatizing other state-owned businesses first. But, as we know, that didn't happen either. Why? I believe there are two reasons. First, the CPA didn't devote enough resources to the privatization effort. As I write in Chapter 7, just three people were devoted to the task of trying to privatize 150 state-owned factories.
'Even more significant at the time was a practical challenge. There
was no way [Glenn] Corliss, [Brad] Jackson, and [Tim] Carney could
do it by themselves. Financial records would have to be scoured,
offers posted and evaluated, financing arranged. When the trio met
with a team of Germans to discuss how factories in the former East
Germany had been privatized, the CPA team was told that the Germans
had eight thousand people working on the project.
"How many do you guys have?" one of the Germans asked. "You're
looking at all of them," Corliss responded.
The German laughed and asked again. "No, how many people work for
you?"
"No, this is it. Three people," Corliss said.
"Don't bother starting," the German said. '
<end excerpt>
Michael