Who specifically ordered the disbanding of the Iraqi Army?

Who actually did order the disbanding of the Iraqi Army?

It is widely recognized now that, after the initial idiotic decision to invade Iraq in the first place, the worst screw up of the entire Iraqi adventure was the disbanding of the Iraqi Army. The most likely culprits have been George W. Bush himself and L. Paul Bremer. But Bush recently told his biographer that it was not his policy to disband the Iraqi military. He stated that the decision was not according to policy, and he implied that L. Paul Bremer was probably the culprit.

But "Jerry" Bremer came back with his OpEd in the New York Times stating that he was not the person who changed the policy. Bremer says that when he ordered the Iraqi Army disbanded he was following the policy he was given from higher up.

Assuming that both are telling the truth (something I always find difficult to assume about Bush, but maybe I should in this case) who actually did direct the Iraqi Army to be disbanded? Fred Kaplan over at Slate addresses this issue in his article Who Disbanded the Iraqi Army? And why was nobody held accountable?.

Kaplan makes several very interesting points.

1. On March 10, a week before the Iraq invasion, the National Security Council unanimously agreed that only the politically active Iraqi "bad guys" (less than 5% of the government) would be removed from government during the occupation. Bush was Present.


2. On March 12 the same NSC members agreed unanimously that the Iraqi Republcan Guard would be disbanded, but not the regular military. Bush was again present.


3. Bremer issued CPA directive No. 2 his second day on the job in Iraq. He had been given his marching orders before leaving the States.


4. Bremer wrote in his memoire that he was given the directions by by Douglas Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy.


5. Feith reported to Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense. Wolfowitz reported directly to Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld.


6. Bob Woodard wrote in State of Denial that Rumsfeld told him the order came from sowewhere else.

So who gave Rumsfeld the order to disband the entire Iraqi military? Kaplan continues:

My guess is it came from Vice President Dick Cheney, if only because his is one of the most leakproof offices in Washington. Had the order originated someplace else, that fact would have leaked by now. It's like the dog that didn't bark in the Sherlock Holmes story; unbarking dogs in this administration, especially at this late date of decrepitude, tend to be the hounds in Cheney's kennel.

But where did Cheney get the idea? A good guess here is that it came from that familiar meddler of the era: the Iraqi exile, chief neocon guru, and suave banker-mathematician, Ahmad Chalabi.

Chalabi, recall, was interested in two things above all, once Saddam Hussein was toppled: removing Baathists from every level of activity in Iraqi politics and society and installing his militia, the Free Iraqi Forces, as the foundation of a new Iraqi army. (Soon after Saddam's overthrow, Wolfowitz arranged for a military transport plane to fly a few hundred of these militiamen to Nasiriya; they vanished almost instantly into the streets. After that, Chalabi had himself briefly appointed to head the official de-Baathification commission.)

In other words, CPA Orders No. 1 and 2 fit Chalabi's twin agendas perfectly.

So Kaplan believes that Dick Cheney is responsible for the disastrous decision to disband the Iraqi military. No one else had the power to override the unanimous decisions of the members of the National Security Council. Cheney's close connections with the convicted embezzler, known NeoCon and suspected Iranian agent Ahmed Chalabi and Cheney's intention to install Chalabi is President of Iraq are well known.

This does rather fit with Dick Cheney's pattern of making disastrous decisions. He has made most of the major foreign policy and military decisions for the White House, and every single one of them has turned out bad.

If it was Cheney who directed the disbanding of the Iraqi military then he apparently failed to tell George W. Bush about his action. If that turns out to be true, then I will have to apologize the Bush for assuming that his failure to recall his directive to disband the Iraqi Army was a symptom of his psychotic mental state.

Instead it is a symptom of Bush's delegation of the day-to-day rule of government to Cheney and Bush's failure to check up on the things Cheney was doing. There is no management school that teaches a form of delegation in which you simply get someone else to do the job for you and never bother to understand or check on what they are doing. That's not management. It's ignorance and laziness. That's simply acting as a figurehead for those who are doing the real management and making excuses for their failures.

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Bremer's CPA orders:

1. Barred members of the Baath Party from all but the lowliest government posts. Issued first day in Iraq.
2. Disbanded the Iraqi army. Issued second day in Iraq.

[h/t to Kevin Drum and to Josh Marshall.]

Bush misremembers - Per Bremer It was policy to disband the Iraqi military

The recent report from Robert Draper's book "Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush" said that Bush claimed " 'The policy was to keep the army intact; didn’t happen.' somehow it didn't happen."

Paul Bremer appears to feel that he followed the policy he was given when he disbanded the Iraqi military, but now is being blamed for unilaterally deciding to take that action on his own. Here is his denial in a New York Times OpEd published September 6, 2007.

How I Didn’t Dismantle Iraq’s Army

By L. PAUL BREMER III

“The Iraqi Army of the future cannot be an extension of the present army, which has been made into a tool of dictatorship.” — Report by the Department of State’s Future of Iraq Project, May 2002

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.

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.

In the weeks after General Abizaid’s recommendation, the coalition’s national security adviser, Walter Slocombe, discussed options with top officials in the Pentagon, including Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. They recognized that to recall the former army was a practical impossibility because postwar looting had destroyed all the bases.

Moreover, the largely Shiite draftees of the army were not going to respond to a recall plea from their former commanders, who were primarily Sunnis. It was also agreed that recalling the army would be a political disaster because to the vast majority of Iraqis it was a symbol of the old Baathist-led Sunni ascendancy.

On May 8, 2003, before I left for Iraq, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld gave me a memo titled “Principles for Iraq-Policy Guidelines” that specified that the coalition “will actively oppose Saddam Hussein’s old enforcers — the Baath Party, Fedayeen Saddam, etc.” and that “we will make clear that the coalition will eliminate the remnants of Saddam’s regime.” The next day Mr. Rumsfeld told me that he had sent the “Principles” paper to the national security adviser and the secretary of state.

Meanwhile, Walter Slocombe’s consultations with Americans officials in Washington and Baghdad showed that they understood that the only viable course was to build a new, professional force open to screened members of the old army. Mr. Slocombe drafted an order to accomplish these objectives. I sent a preliminary draft of this order to the secretary of defense on May 9. The next day I sent the draft to the Defense Department’s general counsel, William J. Haynes, as well as to Mr. Wolfowitz; the under secretary for policy, Douglas Feith; the head of Central Command, Gen. Tommy Franks; and to the coalition’s top civil administrator at the time, Jay Garner, asking for comments.

On May 13, en route to Baghdad, Mr. Slocombe briefed senior British officials in London who told him they recognized that “the demobilization of the Iraqi military is a fait accompli.” His report added that “if some U.K. officers or officials think that we should try to rebuild or reassemble the old R.A. (Republican Army), they did not give any hint of it in our meetings, and in fact agreed with the need for vigorous de-Baathification, especially in the security sector.”

Over the following week, Mr. Slocombe continued discussions about the planned order with top Pentagon officials, including Mr. Feith. During that same period, Lt. Gen. David McKiernan, the field commander of the coalition forces in Iraq, received and cleared the draft order. I briefed Secretary Rumsfeld on the issue several times, and forwarded a final draft of the proposed order for his approval on May 19.

Walter Slocombe subsequently received detailed comments on the draft order incorporating the views of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Office of the Secretary of Defense, making clear that the top civilian and military staff in the Pentagon, as well as the commanders in the field, had reviewed the proposal. Another coalition adviser, Dan Senor, spent the night of May 22 coordinating the text of the announcement with Mr. Rumsfeld’s close adviser Lawrence Di Rita. Apart from minor edits to the order, none of the military or civilian officials raised objections to the proposal to create a new Iraqi army or to formally dissolve Saddam Hussein’s security apparatus.

On May 22, I sent to President Bush, through Secretary Rumsfeld, my first report since arriving in Iraq. I reviewed our activities since arrival, including our de-Baathification policy. I then alerted the president that “I will parallel this step with an even more robust measure dissolving Saddam’s military and intelligence structures.” The same day, I briefed the president on the plan via secure video. The president sent me a note on May 23 in which he thanked me for my report and noted that “you have my full support and confidence.” [Snip]

The decision not to recall Saddam Hussein’s army was thoroughly considered by top officials in the American government. At the time, this decision was not controversial. ... The first I heard of doubts about the decision was in the fall of 2003 after the insurgency had picked up speed.

These two men, George W. Bush and L. Paul Bremer, both failed disastrously in Iraq. Now they are arguing over whose fault the single most critical failed decision of the occupation was. Neither of them want to take the blame for the disaster.

I'd say that Bremer has a bit more credibility than Bush does. First, Bush tries to claim he simply doesn't remember just what happened, while Bremer offers details along with what numerous other people said on the subject, other people who can be contacted to confirm what was said. When Bush forgets what happened and Bremer provides extensive detail, the credibility rests with Bremer.

Then there is the fact that Bush rarely seems constrained by the facts when he says anything. He says what he wants his audience to believe without regard to whatever reality supposedly lies behind what he says. Bush can't be trusted. Bremer is not known to be so loose with the facts or disconnected from reality. Again, the credibility rests with Bremer.

Of course, the key point to remember is that bush was in charge, so even if he doesn't remember screwing up the occupation, he is still responsible for it even more than Bremer is.

Pete Moore describes the CPA theories of the 2004 insurgency

This is fascinating. Pete Moore is a political scientist studying the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, and he was reviewing a bunch of documents on line when he discovered that he could get into the Word documents and see all the changes that had been made before each document was published. He found an internal CPA document that presented the various theories about why the insurgent attacks were declining in number in late 2003. From Salon, here is what Pete learned:

Presumably, staffers at the CPA's Information Management Unit, which produced the weekly reports, were cutting and pasting large sections of text into the reports and then eliminating all but the few short passages they needed. Much of the material they were cribbing seems to have come from the kind of sensitive, security-related documents that were never meant to be available to the public. In fact, about half of the 20 improperly redacted documents I downloaded, including the March 28 report, contain deleted portions that all seem to come from one single, 1,000-word security memo. The editors kept pulling text from a document titled "Why Are the Attacks Down in Al-Anbar Province -- Several Theories." (The security memo and the last page of the March 28 report can be seen here, along with several other CPA documents that can be downloaded.)

Microsoft Word's "Mark up" feature shows the time and date of the deletion and the identity of the person doing the deleting, but it doesn't give the original author of the passage or when it was written. The title and hints in the text point to a memo written by one person in December 2003 or January 2004, when daily attacks on coalition forces in Anbar, the heavily Sunni province west of Baghdad that is the heartland of the insurgency, were the lowest in many months. These were the CPA's salad days. Prior to the al-Sadr uprising and the Abu Ghraib scandal and the failed siege of Fallujah later in 2004, the CPA believed that it was succeeding in reshaping Iraq. In his book "The Assassins' Gate," George Packer depicts late 2003 and early 2004 as the last phase of quiet isolation for the CPA, before the facts on the ground began to impinge on its Green Zone idyll. "Why Are the Attacks Down" shows the CPA on the cusp, as the author gives a half-dozen different theories for the short-term decline in violence.

One explanation given for the downturn is called "Rounding Up the Bums." It suggests that the U.S. military might have successfully quelled the insurgency. Maj. Gen. Charles H. Swannack, who commanded the 82nd Airborne in Iraq until May 2004, was well known for using aggressive tactics. The memo describes Swannack and other generals as believing that American raids on suspected insurgents were driving the bad guys "underground." The memo acknowledges collateral damage, but is blithely unaware of the implications. "Most raids also leave in their wake a number of innocents who were either rounded up and detained or had their houses busted up ... But there appears to be sufficient care in how the attacks are carried out, adequate information in the community about the mild reality of detention, and sufficient civil affairs clean up afterwards that this has not been a major factor." By April 2004, the infamous Abu Ghraib pictures had begun to surface, visual evidence of how the military had been alienating the Iraqi civilian population.

A second explanation hinges explicitly on an old ethnic stereotype about how Arabs only understand force. The "Crossed the Line" argument insists that violence is intrinsic to Arab culture: "[It] is a form of political discourse as well as being culturally acceptable for settling disputes and scores." The memo then argues that the violence in Anbar was quelled once the Americans proved they could be more violent. The Americans brought out a bigger stick, namely Gen. Abizaid's threat to "some 70 Sheikhs and community leaders" in Anbar "to unleash hell," twinned with the U.S. Air Force dropping some timely Joint Direct Action Munitions on the province.

A third explanation, "Occupation Ending," says that the insurgents are backing off because they think the U.S. is about to depart. "What they" -- meaning the Iraqis -- "have gotten wrong," says the memo's author, "is the idea that the military will be leaving Iraq in June, which one individual said he was sure was a major factor in the diminishing attacks. Oh well, this is one time it might be best that folks don't fully understand things." Supposedly, the CPA's June 2004 deadline for handing over sovereignty to the Iraqis was misread by some locals as implying the withdrawal of American troops, and thus caused the number of insurgent attacks to decrease. (Four years later, the Bush administration often says any deadline for troop withdrawal would increase attacks.)

A fourth argument, "Project Money Flowing," embraces an enduring pillar of American foreign policy in the Middle East. Economic development and free trade, according to the money theory, would solve political disputes. American cash was coming to Anbar, and violence was abating. "While the amounts of money are still modest, especially in Fallujah, there are a number of visible projects ongoing that have employed some people and given the appearance that help is on the way." If the violence was going down in Iraq, according to this theory, it must have been because the CPA's various development projects were paying off. In 2007, few would argue that there are many signs of economic development anywhere in Iraq, or that billions in U.S. aid has mitigated opposition to the American presence.

A fifth theory, "Engagement," says that Iraqis have begun to have hope thanks to sustained contact with Americans. "We'll take some credit here. We have been engaging widely with ... ex-Baathists, ex-Army. While many are tiring of the refrain that if you stay with us things will get better, for some they actually have improved and that many have given hope to entire groups." The author calls these people "the various groups of losers in the New Iraq."

A final argument for the downturn in attacks offers what briefly looks like a flash of reality. The "Operational Pause" theory surmises that reduced attacks may be a statistical blip. They may increase again as "terrorists" regroup for future fights against the Americans and "other Iraqis." But then the author calls this "a boring theory," and notes, "There are very few persons we have met who subscribe to this."

Nowhere in any of these theories, including the "boring" one, does the author address the dissolution of the Iraqi Army as a major contributor to the violence. Nowhere, in fact, does the author seem to know which "bums" or "losers" are attacking the Americans or why. Indeed, the most remarkable passage in the entire deletion is a simple statement by an Iraqi businessman, whom the writer quotes in passing while explaining why American-induced economic prosperity will end the fighting. "It is nothing personal," the Iraqi says. "I like you and believe you could be bringing us a better future, but I still sympathize with those who attack the coalition because it is not right for Iraq to be occupied by foreign military forces." In the world of the CPA circa 2004, first one American glosses over this Iraqi's prophetic words, and then another tries -- unsuccessfully, as it turns out -- to delete them.

-- By Pete Moore

The Iraqi Army was dissolved by Jerry Bremer, head of the CPA, on May 15, 2003. The Iraqis did not expect to be occupied by American armed forces for an extended period of time, and the senior leaders of the Army generally expected to work with the Americans to create a new government to replace Saddam and then usher the Americans out. Instead Bremer dissolved the military and even stopped paying military pensions to the families of soldiers. That, plus the deBaathification program that refused to allow anyone who had belonged to the Baath Party work for the government in a state where most employment was with the government created a highly trained and disaffected class of unemployable individuals, most with military training and weapons at home.

Then the occupation itself by foreign troops was (and is) seen as an insult to the Iraqi people and nation. The Iraqis are rightly proud of the fact that their society was in fact the source of all human civilization. Writing, numbers, hydraulic engineering, written law, agriculture, the first cities - all of that started along the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. They have been conquered by barbarians before, but always got rid of them one way or another.

The Americans are just another bunch of conquering barbarians whose ancestors were northern hunter-gatherers 3,000 years after the ancestors of the Iraqis had invented civilization. And the descendants of these barbarians dare come in an try to teach civilization to the Iraqis? The Iraqis were all of civilization when civilization wasn't cool. And the American parvenus don't even realize how insulting they are being. It doesn't help a bit that George W. Bush is very clearly a great deal more stupid than Gen. Tommy Franks thinks Douglas Feith is.

It is clear that the American (OK - call it Coalition - same difference) occupation of Iraq is a high-level cultural insult to Iraqis. Add to this the utter stupidity of Jerry Bremer in forcing the Iraqi military into unpaid unemployment, and the insurgency is rather easily explained. It should have been anticipated, if the Bush Administration and the CPA personnel had a clue about the nature of Iraqi society and culture. That they had no clue is clearly demonstrated in the above document ressurected by Pete Moore.

The hints have been there, and the level of disaster that Bremer initiated when he disbanded the Iraqi Army has been clear to many of us from the time he did it. This is strong documentation of what set off the Insurrection in Iraq.

Think an understanding of this could lead to a solution? I do. But the solution will have to include the evacuation of the U.S. military from Iraq. There is no way any American military presence in Iraq will be able to do enough positive to offset the strong reason to continue the insurgency as long as they are there.

Why did the Iraq occupation go so very bad?

First, the invasion of Iraq was itself a total mistake. It was a right-wing fantasy enacted by close-minded individuals who were proud of their party's ability to win an election and failed to apply any other skills.

That said, the actual military invasion of Iraq, planned and operated by our well-trained and well-equipped military was a case of applying a very large hammer to a relatively small nail. For the most part, the military aspects of the actual invasion worked rather well. But everything after the fall of the statue of Saddam in Baghdad has been a disaster. This is the famous "Phase IV." While there is little doubt now that this was the case, there is still the question of how it could possibly have gone SO VERY bad.

Now the Special Inspector General for Iraq has provided a report that answers these questions. By Dana Hedgpeth, Staff writer for the Washington Post:

The U.S. government was unprepared for the extensive nation-building required after it invaded Iraq, and at each juncture where it could have adjusted its efforts, it failed even to understand the problems it faced, according to the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.

In a stinging, wide-ranging assessment of U.S. reconstruction efforts, Stuart W. Bowen Jr. said that in the days after the invasion, the Defense Department had no strategy for restoring either government institutions or infrastructure. And in the years since, other agencies joined the effort without an overall plan and without a structure in place to organize and execute a task of such magnitude.

Lines of authority remained unclear in the reconstruction effort. With a demand for speed and a shortage of government personnel, much of the oversight was turned over to the contractors doing the work. There was little coordination among the various agencies. The result was a series of missed opportunities to address the unraveling situation, Bowen said.

"Many layers of management . . . made it difficult to determine who had ultimate authority over money, people and projects," he said. [Snip]

For the first time, the report lays out a timeline documenting the paucity of planning from the beginning of the war in Iraq, noting what was needed when and describing how the scale of reconstruction grew once the United States was in Iraq. It details how Congress provided vast amounts of money with little idea of how it was being spent. The push to get things done quickly meant turning much of the reconstruction over to contractors with little oversight from the government, as security worsened. And the lack of coordination magnified every shortcoming. [Snip]

Bowen said changes like those that took place in Iraq are not "short-term affairs."

"They are complicated, with social, political and security dimensions, and if you can't think of all the pieces of them together, then you're not ever going to end up with a response that works," he said.

In other words, the White House and the civilians at the Pentagon, applying Republican free market theory, failed to recognize that there was a need for government to conduct nation-building. So they walked into Iraq without any plan for doing anything at all except securing the oil supplies and removing the "dead hand of government from the backs of the entrepreneurs in Iraq." The result of this was that the Americans who were supposedly running things at the CPA and then from the Embassy were winging it. Each individual was trying to make decisions on their own with no coordination of the overall operation.

They removed the government, dismantling it with debaathification and the disbanding of the military and police forces, while not having enough troops in country to replace those they were getting rid of. (Yay, Rumsfeld!) Jerry Bremer, Head of the CPA, knew what the political bosses in Washington said they wanted, and he thought that by disbanding the Iraqi government and military he was giving it to them. But the absence of an overall integrated plan made such decisions made "from the hip" very unreliable. Bremer clearly did not realize what the results of disbanding the Iraqi government would be.

Of course, the free market theory was correct. Remove the government and military, leave a vacuum, and the free market did take over. But not to create an economy and a peaceful society.

The Sunnis wanted their jobs running the country back, and to get those jobs back, they had to evict the occupying American armies. Fortunately for the Sunnis, those American armies were too small to provide stability in Iraq by themselves. Al Qaeda wanted to disrupt American operations, and the lack of political and social stability was exactly what they needed. Kurds wanted their effective Kurdistan to remain in place, but they had had a decade to establish effective government structures and build a defense around the Peshmerga (Kurdish militias.) The Shiites wanted to protect themselves from the Sunni oppressors, but were (and are) highly disorganized and have no tradition of running a government. The result was that, under the very noses of the Americans, the Sunni resistance developed, aided by al Qaeda-in-Iraq. The Sunni resistance attacked the Americans, and al Qaeda-in-Iraq attacked the Shiites to provoke a civil war. The fractured Shiites, having to learn to govern a nation which has always before been governed by military force had no room to make mistakes as they learned on the job. Of course they have made numerous mistakes, as would be expected.

By the end of the first year after the invasion, the insurgent groups had organized, trained and were becoming effective. Here is your free market at work. The needed institutions to kick the invading Americans out of Iraq were developed quite quickly.

The Americans, being led by a President who does not listen to underlings or outsiders and who makes a (political) fetish of non rational intuitive decisions which must never be changed, actively prevented American adaptation to the changing conditions in Iraq. The American Enterprise Institute approved members of the Kiddy Brigade who staffed the CPA were too inexperienced to be anything better than simply useless. The Sec. of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, was so busy trying to prove that the military could operate "lean and mean" that he, too, refused to listen to his subordinates and failed to adapt. Rumsfeld also made it crystal clear to the Generals under his command that their careers depended on carrying out orders, not questioning them. In this vein, a number of Generals were retired and replaced by compliant Generals like Richard Meirs who was appointed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The American institutions were made to be about as unadaptive to changing situations as possible, just as it was facing an enemy that was willing to try anything and to promote the survivors who were able to make something entrepreneurial work. The result was to create two competing institutions, the U.S. military which was too small to be effective and which was made as unresponsive to conditions on the ground as an institution filled with well-trained and well-motivated people can be, and the competing insurgents who became the lean, mean fighting machines that Don Rumsfeld wanted his military to be. Probably by the end of the first year and certainly by the end of the second after the invasion, the U.S. had lost all hope of bringing stability to Iraq. This was a total failure by America's political leaders, the Republican Party led by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the NeoCons.

In the meantime, the very fractured Shiite community tried to create an Iraqi government that was acceptable to the occupying Americans, while every local community set up its own militia to protect themselves and their families because the government and the Americans were not doing that very basic function of government. Peace could only come with an effective government that had a monopoly on the use of deadly force. In the absence of such a government, everyone had to join some local militia or become fodder for the insurgents and the militias.

The American civilian leaders in Iraq tried to solve the economic problems by throwing money at them. Money by the pallet-load of cash - the most stealable form of money they could get. This, of course, attracted every individual and company in the world with get-rich-quick schemes. Halliburton, Parsons, and Blackwater have all lined up at the money trough with shovels. But the economic problems cannot be solved until there is a government in place which, with its monopoly on deadly force, can enforce stability on Iraq. Since the various militias are sending their members to the Iraqi Army and Police to be trained and equipped before they go back to rejoin their militias, such stability is not to be expected in any near term.

So why did the Iraq occupation go so very bad? The short answer is George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld refused to plan, and the absence of an integrated plan for the occupation has unleashed a deadly anarchy.

So the next question is how will they be made accountable for their failures?

The answer to that question is yet to be written.