What happened after the fall of Baghdad?

I have wondered why General Jay Garner was replaced by Paul Bremer after only six weeks. A leaked set of memos written by John Sawers, Mr Blair's envoy in Baghdad in the aftermath of the invasion gives some insight:

With unusual frankness, he described the US postwar administration, led by the retired general Jay Garner, as "an unbelievable mess" and said "Garner and his top team of 60-year-old retired generals" were "well-meaning but out of their depth".

The news report is well worth reading for its litany of what all went bad in the aftermath of the actual invasion. The short version of it is that none of the Americans seemed to have any interest in what happened to Iraq after the initial combat was completed. This certainly explains Bush's "Mission Accomplished" statement on the aircraft carrier.

There is another thing I want to point out from the story. According to Sawers:

[There was] "A lack of interest by the US commander, General Tommy Franks, in the post-invasion phase."

Major General Albert Whitley, the most senior British officer with the US land forces made a similar statement about General Franks attitude of disinterest towards the Phase IV, with some explanation:

"I am quite sure Franks did not want to take ownership of Phase IV,"

It was obvious that the military side of the invasion of Iraq functioned pretty well as long as it was left to the uniformed people, but when the Pentagon "suits" (civilians) and other political leaders had to act, things quickly got screwed up. The failure to get the Turks to let the American Division land and invade from the North, followed by the failure to prevent the looting immediately after the invasion were clearly failures on the civilian and political side of the invasion.

General Franks had little control of those things, so if he saw the phase IV as being a failure from the beginning, it would be good politics for him to avoid taking responsibility for it.