How Bremer screwed up in Iraq

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
It was an experiment. That whole smaller, faster, better military thing. Iraq is just one big live fire training excercise.

To be fair, it worked extremely well for the conquest bit

The only problem is we don't have enough to prevent the constant culture flips.

[chequita guevara]

[MOBIUS]

Personally I think we should rename this thread "How Ned is a ****"...

[Berzerker]

Yeah Ned, why do you think Bremer dreamed this plan up and implemented it without WH approval and direction? I understand why they did it - to gain the trust and help of the non-Sunni Ba'athists who sure would not be happy if the same Iraqi army that slaughtered them in the past was put back in power.
It's a tough decision, I can see pros and cons to both plans. I suspect we could have identified enough former Iraqi officers who weren't bloodthirsty to lead the Iraqi army and that may have been the best approach...

[Ned]

Originally posted by MOBIUS
Personally I think we should rename this thread "How Ned is a ****"...

Thanks, Mobius. If you recall, I was always in the camp that we needed the Iraqi Army. This is why I am even more pissed to find out that the US Military thought that keeping the Army was necessary.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Yeah Ned, why do you think Bremer dreamed this plan up and implemented it without WH approval and direction? I understand why they did it - to gain the trust and help of the non-Sunni Ba'athists who sure would not be happy if the same Iraqi army that slaughtered them in the past was put back in power.
It's a tough decision, I can see pros and cons to both plans. I suspect we could have identified enough former Iraqi officers who weren't bloodthirsty to lead the Iraqi army and that may have been the best approach...

Until the NYTimes gives us more, I assume this was a plan that was hatched by Bremer. De-Ba'athification was a broad goal of virtually everyone. The dismissal of the Army, I believe, was not part of the original plan. That appears to be a Bremer original. He made the assumption, it appears, that Ba'athist were heavily interspersed in the ranks. That was not the case.

As to this Sunni vs. Shi'ite vs. Kurd, I think that Bremer may have been listening too much to Chalabi.

[Arrian]

It may have been the case, Ned (edit: that the Iraqi army was too Baathist). There was a certain logic to it.

The REAL issue, for me, is that the people who decided to invade Iraq (the Bush administration) did *NOT* do their ****ing homework on the country they were about to invade.

That alone is enough reason to fire them.

-Arrian

[Q Classic]

As to this Sunni vs. Shi'ite vs. Kurd, I think that Bremer may have been listening too much to Chalabi.

Chalabi, who Bush has never really met or gotten to know?

[Q Classic]

As to this Sunni vs. Shi'ite vs. Kurd, I think that Bremer may have been listening too much to Chalabi.

Or Chalabi, the friend that Bush was saying would help us lead the new Iraq?

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Ned


Thanks, Mobius. If you recall, I was always in the camp that we needed the Iraqi Army. This is why I am even more pissed to find out that the US Military thought that keeping the Army was necessary.

So in 1945 you would have been in that crowd defending the necessity of forgiving former Nazis to rebuild Germany?

I thought one of your big conviction was to spread democracy, not to remotely manage in an unfair albeit efficient way foreign resources.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris


So in 1945 you would have been in that crowd defending the necessity of forgiving former Nazis to rebuild Germany?

I thought one of your big conviction was to spread democracy, not to remotely manage in an unfair albeit efficient way foreign resources.

Oncle, the problem with your thesis is that the premise is wrong. The Iraqi Army was Ba'athist only at the Major General level - a fact discovered after we began our vetting of former officers. Bremer operated on the assumption that the whole of the Iraqi Army was infested with Ba'athists. He was wrong. But he could have found out the truth by simply asking the field commanders or the Joint Chiefs.

[Pax]

Originally posted by Ned


Oncle, the problem with your thesis is that the premise is wrong. The Iraqi Army was Ba'athist only at the Major General level - a fact discovered after we began our vetting of former officers. Bremer operated on the assumption that the whole of the Iraqi Army was infested with Ba'athists. He was wrong. But he could have found out the truth by simply asking the field commanders or the Joint Chiefs.

Ned,
I read a long time ago that the pentagon wanted more troops and were turned down. I also read that the Iraqi army was disbanded immediately after the "war".
This is the first time I've heard you be so critical of a decision concerning the Iraqi "war". Is it just because you've been given a person that's not a neocon to take potshots at. If you disagreed with the decision then you should have spoken up long before now.
By the way, I heard Mr. Rumsfeld say prior to the war that we were using the minimum troops necessary to win the conflict i.e. efficient war and that we would use the minimum necessary to maintain the peace(efficient peace). He further more stated that if more troops were needed we would send more troops. This is not a direct qoute. He also did not say that he defers to Bremer on this or any decision. Squarely the responsibility for troop levels is the secdef.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Pax

Ned,
I read a long time ago that the pentagon wanted more troops and were turned down. I also read that the Iraqi army was disbanded immediately after the "war".
This is the first time I've heard you be so critical of a decision concerning the Iraqi "war". Is it just because you've been given a person that's not a neocon to take potshots at. If you disagreed with the decision then you should have spoken up long before now.
By the way, I heard Mr. Rumsfeld say prior to the war that we were using the minimum troops necessary to win the conflict i.e. efficient war and that we would use the minimum necessary to maintain the peace(efficient peace). He further more stated that if more troops were needed we would send more troops. This is not a direct qoute. He also did not say that he defers to Bremer on this or any decision. Squarely the responsibility for troop levels is the secdef.

Last year, MTG and I had many spirited debates on the issue of the Iraqi Army. I thought we needed to keep it, deploy it, and to use it to get out of Iraqi ASAP. MtG disagreed, strongly IIRC.

Now it turns out that the US military also saw the need to use the Iraqi Army for three reasons 1) security; and 2) to prevent the Army from joining a resistance; and 3) to prevent several hundred thousand young men from joining the ranks of the unemployed.

That Bremer ignored all of this to prove some ephemeral point was more than foolish. It was criminal.

[Mr. Harley]

Sort of like Rumsfeld ignoring all the advice from the career military types and DOD/State/CIA intel resources that we would need over 200,000 troops to occupy Iraq?

[DanS]

Yeah Ned, why do you think Bremer dreamed this plan up and implemented it without WH approval and direction? I understand why they did it - to gain the trust and help of the non-Sunni Ba'athists who sure would not be happy if the same Iraqi army that slaughtered them in the past was put back in power.
It's a tough decision, I can see pros and cons to both plans. I suspect we could have identified enough former Iraqi officers who weren't bloodthirsty to lead the Iraqi army and that may have been the best approach...

I agree with this. It's a difficult choice that I'm hesitant to gainsay, even knowing what we know now.