September 12, 2007
It was in fact the only sensible option...
This is a question I've argued a number of times, so I was glad to see this piece by Paul Bremer, detailing why we dealt as we did with the Iraqi army... (Actually the people who claim we made a mistake never argue the point--they just assert it as if it were self-evident. Poltroons.)
How I Didn’t Dismantle Iraq’s Army - New York Times:
IT has become conventional wisdom that the decision to disband Saddam Hussein’s army was a mistake, was contrary to American prewar planning and was a decision I made on my own. In fact the policy was carefully considered by top civilian and military members of the American government. And it was the right decision.Posted by John Weidner at September 12, 2007 01:16 PM
By the time Baghdad fell on April 9, 2003, the Iraqi Army had simply dissolved. On April 17 Gen. John Abizaid, the deputy commander of the Army’s Central Command, reported in a video briefing to officials in Washington that “there are no organized Iraqi military units left.” The disappearance of Saddam Hussein’s old army rendered irrelevant any prewar plans to use that army. So the question was whether the Coalition Provisional Authority should try to recall it or to build a new one open to both vetted members of the old army and new recruits. General Abizaid favored the second approach....
I’m absolutely certain that if we had somehow been able to keep the Iraqi army intact we wouldn't be having the problems that we are having today in Iraq. We’d be having a whole different set of problems. History is not a lab experiment. We can’t rewind the tape, try it again and see how a different decision would have worked out. It is entirely possible that the Shia majority simply would not have accepted a largely Sunni army. Instead of having a variety of Shia militias we could have instead had a very popular Shia army funded by Iran. Then you truly could have had the one thing that everyone was desperate to avoid – a civil war. I don’t know that that would have happened, but it certainly could have happened. The people who moan about disbanding the army are likely being intellectually dishonest (again). I suppose I could give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they simply don’t know anything about a decision making process.
Posted by: Mike Plaiss at September 12, 2007 07:23 PMThe first lefty who shows me where he published, prior to the war, a piece that argued in favor of keeping the Iraqi Army intact, is the first lefty I'll listen to argue that disbanding it was a mistake. I'll probably still side with Bremer, but at this point, there's only one side making an argument - the other side is sniping.
And there is not a doubt in my mind that, had we left the Iraqi Army intact (if it had even been possible), it would be held up as the signal act of Bush's disregard for the Iraqi people, the symbol of "meet the new boss."
