A former paratrooper in the British Army with extensive experience of conflict and post-conflict management in the countries of former Yugoslavia, Mark Etherington had just completed an M.Phil. in international relations at Cambridge University in 2003 when the British Foreign Office asked him to assume the governorship of Wasit Province in southern Iraq on behalf of the Coalition Provisional Authority or CPA.Etherington established a small team in the provincial capital of al-Kut on the banks of the Tigris in order to begin the process of reconstruction both political and physical of a...