But Paul Bremmer steps into the breach (tip to Real Clear Politics). I hate breaking my Times DeSelect Policy, but I feel I have little choice but to suspend it for this article.
Wrote Bremmer:
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. ...
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.
Look, I have no interest in defending or attacking Bremmer over his tenure in Iraq. But this corresponds with my memory of the events at the time, including the lack of controversy over the decision.
One, before the war, we intended to use at least parts of the Saddam-era army. We would weed out Saddam loyalists but keep enough for security in what was assumed would be a fairly benign security environment (remember that even critics of the war assumed that Saddam was so hated that we wouldn't need to invade to overthrow him).
Two, as it turns out, the army self-disbanded.
Three, it would have been difficult to recall the army due to looting at army bases that made them unfit for use.
Four, with the Shia enlisted personnel scattered, having Sunni officers call them back was unlikely to succeed.
Five, the symbolism of calling back these units might have made the already suspicious Shias believe we just wanted to play musical chairs with Sunni rulers and not liberate them.
And six, we immediately planned to recruit a new army from those Shia enlisted personnel who had scattered.
Our major mistake was in initially trying to build a conventional military of 3 divisions capable of independent operations which would serve as a core to expand in a benign security environment. Instead, we should have been looking at a larger force geared to internal security as we are building now.
But it was not an unreasonable assumption to make at the time. Who suspected that Syria and Iran would support proxies in Iraq at that point? Who believed that a enough Sunnis would pine for Saddam to support the Baathists? Who believed Saddam had so much money after a decade of sanctions to pay for resistance? And who suspected that arms were buried all over the place to be used by Saddam loyalists?
And who believes that if we had retained or recalled an army riddled with Saddam loyalists as officers would have fought hard for the fledgling Iraqi government rather than defect against such resistance and resources?
Honestly, I keep trying to get out of the disbanding debate. But every time I do ...
