“On June 1 [2004], United Nations envoy Lakhdar Brahimi announced the names of the members of the interim government [in Iraq] that would assume power on June 30, when [Director of the Coalition Provisional Authority L. Paul ‘Jerry’] Bremer was scheduled to leave and the CPA was to be dissolved. Brahimi had consulted with hundreds of Iraqis–with professors, judges, clerics, and members of the Governing Council. He had even met with Grand Ayatollah [Ali] al-Sistani. But the selection of the government, the most significant step on Iraq’s path to democracy after Saddam’s ouster, was anything but democratic. Brahimi decided who was in and who was out, in consultation with Jerry Bremer and [National Security Council Deputy for Iraq] Bob Blackwill. Allowing Iraqis to choose would have been more democratic but also more chaotic, and the last thing Washington wanted was chaos.”
– Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Imperial Life in the Emerald City, Page 244