[subego]

Part One: The Aftermath of the Invasion

Originally Posted by Colonel David Perkins

Right after we got into Baghdad, there was a huge window of opportunity... By the time we got a plan together to resource everything, the insurgents had closed that window of opportunity quickly. What we started doing in September [2003] was probably a good idea to have done in April 2003. (p. 89)

Originally Posted by Captain Warren Sponsler

There were American units that were securing the routes, but it was so overwhelming that there really wasn’t much they could do about it. There were guys dragging bathtubs, construction equipment, or you name it. (p. 90)

Originally Posted by Colonel Daniel B. Allyn

I think probably the most challenging situation for them, quite frankly, was when the populace began to take advantage of their own people in terms of looting. That put our Soldiers in a position of forcing them to be policemen, which we clearly had not done a lot of training on. (p. 90-91)

Originally Posted by Iraqi Lieutenant General Nasier Abadi

The Coalition had no plan for the total lack of public order forces in the wake of the success of the Coalition forces and the disappearance of the Iraqi Army. The vacuum that resulted was enormous. (p. 91)

Originally Posted by Faruq Ahmed Saadeddin

If it had gone smoothly from the first day, honestly, I believe this a 100 percent: 95 percent of the Baathists, the registered Baathists, would have cheered, hailed America. (p. 91)

Originally Posted by Unnamed Iraqi

Saddam had ruled for nearly 25 years, behind the scenes for far longer; the Americans had toppled him in less than three weeks, and relatively few of their Soldiers had died in the task. How could these same Americans be so feeble in the aftermath? (p. 91)

Originally Posted by Unnamed Iraqi Cleric

I simply cannot understand how your soldiers could have stood by and watched [the looting]. Maybe, [the Americans] are weak, too. Or maybe they are wicked. (p. 91)

Originally Posted by Major Rod Coffey

That was certainly a perception on the street on the part of some Iraqis, or at least grappling with the doubt, ‘Well, maybe this is the way the Americans want it. All of us looting and going at each other in chaos. This is what they want. This is to their benefit.’ You can’t let that perception develop and it did. (p. 92)

Analysis: we were greeted as liberators yet were nowhere near a position to liberate.

From On Point II.

More to come...

[subego]

What? Nothing? Too medias in res?

[subego]

Part Two: De-Baathification and Dissolution of the Iraqi Army

Originally Posted by Ambassador Paul Bremer

[The goal of the de-Baathification order was to] quash the impression that the Coalition had toppled Saddam only to hand power to the next level of Baathists. (p. 94)

Originally Posted by Major General William Webster

We were surpised, shocked.

Lieutenant General McKiernan and I had established relationships with [the Iraqi generals] and had started to give them guidance and they were excited.

The officers who supported Saddam loyally for a long time were going to resist us. This fight would turn into something long and hard. That was a terrible night. Lieutenant General McKiernan and I walked around in the dark and talked about this a long time, about what that meant down the road. (p. 94)

Originally Posted by Unnamed Iraqi

[The Baath Party] had become part of the fabric of Iraqi society, a complex, interrelated pyramid of economic, political, religious, and tribal links. ... But to dismantle the Party, the Army, and the other structure of the state was only to replace them with chaos. (p. 96)

Originally Posted by Major General Webster

The de-Baathification meant that the bureaucracy that made Iraq work was no longer allowed to help make Iraq work. Regardless of whether you thought they are good people or bad people, they were running the country until we told them they couldn’t. (p. 96)

Originally Posted by Unnamed Baathist Clerk

We were on top of the system. We had dreams. Now we are the losers. We lost our positions, our status, the [economic] security of our families, stability. Curse the Americans. Curse them. (p. 96)

Originally Posted by Major General David H. Petraeus

[By the fall of 2003 the effect of the overall de-Baathification program] was that tens of thousands of former party members were unemployed, without any salary, without any retirement, without any benefits, and therefore, to a large degree, without any incentive to support the new Iraq. (p. 97)

You may get the impression from these quotes that the Army wants to pin everything directly on Bremer, but the report states they feel "the administration based its decision to disband the armed forces on a reasonable premise" (p. 95), to wit:

Originally Posted by Ambassador Bremer

It’s absolutely essential to convince Iraqis that we’re not going to permit the return of Saddam’s instruments of repression—the Baath Party, the Mukhabarat’s security services, or Saddam’s army. We didn’t send our troops half-way around the world to overthrow Saddam to find another dictator taking his place. (p. 95)

Likewise they claim "Bremer had ostensibly created the CPA’s de-Baathification policy with enough flexibility to allow the electrical workers, teachers, and clerks who had been Baath Party members to renounce their affiliation and become productive members of society again" (p. 95-96)

The Army notes however that Bremer and the CPA "did not initially establish the details of its review process and the CPA itself had only a very limited capacity to screen and approve those Baathists who petitioned for exception to the policy", thus "it was almost always up to the US military commanders in the field to make this review process work, and to some degree, the process moved forward at a sluggish pace in the summer of 2003." (p. 96)

So the Army is seated with an enormously difficult task that they see as justified, and they admit their own sluggish pace.

I've left a part out however. In the Army's eyes, the most that any and/or all of the preceding can amount to is a penultimate straw.

More to come...

[Tiresias]

Opps.

[subego]

^^

And I was so excited too.

[Tiresias]

Hey, they'll bite. Just be patient.

[Tiresias]

Maybe not.