It is also designed to reinstate thousands of Baathists dismissed from government jobs after the 2003 U.S. invasion — a decision that deepened sectarian tensions between Iraq's majority Shiites and the once-dominant Sunni Arabs, who believed the firings targeted their community.
The strict implementation of so-called de-Baathification rules also meant that many senior bureaucrats who knew how to run ministries, university departments and state companies ended up unemployed in a country where 35 years of Baath party rule and extensive government involvement in the economy had left tens of thousands of party members in key positions.
That, coupled with the disbanding of the Iraqi army, threw tens of thousands of people out of work at a critical time in Iraq's history and fueled the burgeoning Sunni insurgency.
The Bush administration initially promoted de-Baathification but later claimed that Iraqi authorities went beyond even what the Americans had contemplated to keep Saddam's supporters out of important jobs. ...
The legislation can become law only when approved by Iraq's presidential council. The council, comprised of Iraq's president and two vice presidents, is expected to ratify the measure.
The draft law approved Saturday is not a blanket approval for all former Baathists to take government jobs.
The law will allow low-ranking Baathists not involved in past crimes against Iraqis to go back to their jobs. High-ranking Baathists will be sent to compulsory retirement and those involved in crimes will stand trial, though their families will still have the right to pension.
The Baathists who were members in Saddam's security agencies must retire — except for members of Fidayeen Saddam, a feared militia formed by Saddam's eldest son, Oday. They will be entitled to nothing.
This is good. But the myths perpetuated by the story cannot go unchallenged though I've vowed (and then failed)not to blog on the subject again.
We did not "disband" the Iraqi army except in the most technical sense.
Second, while we certainly did not recall the Iraqi army, we did accept eagerly the enlistment of veterans of the old Iraqi army for the new Iraqi security forces. Indeed (and this is something "new" that I rediscovered while searching my old posts), it was not possible to recall the old Iraqi army.
Third, even if we could have kept or recalled the old Iraqi army, it would have been a bad idea.
And fourth, stop treating the old Baathists as poor exploited minorities who need protection from the Shia meanies through affirmative action.
Let's go through this again, shall we? I searched my old archives to get closer to the event. I've blogged on this in recent years on this site using more recent finds but I figured going back would be valuable. My first comments on the old site were based on my memories, and then finally the always valuable Strategypage came to my rescue in fall 2003 to assure me that my memory was not faulty.
The Iraqi army self-disbanded during the initial invasion. Our "disbanding" of the army was a pure technical move to eliminate on paper what no longer existed in the field. I noted (you'll need to scroll down since this was pre-anchor days) in "Thank you" (Posted October 30, 2003) this November 3, 2003 Strategypage post (I had to search Strategypage to get a good link after all this time:
One of the more interesting lessons of the Iraq war was the nearly complete collapse of the Iraqi army. This was largely forgotten until recent media criticism along the lines of, "why wasn't the Iraqi army kept together for peacekeeping duty." The reason was simple; the Iraqi army simply melted away before Baghdad fell. The troops and officers just up and went home. Once the troops had left their bases, looters quickly moved in and stole everything, nailed down or not. Plumbing and even portions of buildings in army bases were looted. Many records of who was in the Iraqi army disappeared as well. So recalling the Iraqi army was moot. There were no facilities to station the troops in, and no way to sort out which officers and troops were pro-Saddam and which weren't. Moreover, Iraqi officers were selected largely on the basis of their loyalty to Saddam, not their leadership or military skills. Worse yet, many of those arrested since then for attacking coalition troops have been former army officers.
Not only didn't we "disband" the Iraqi army, but even recalling it--as some critics who admit the Iraqi army was gone still insist should have been done--wasn't possible either. And we can see the problem of trusting Baathist officers brought up here. This is a point I've grought up many times. Can you imagine what might have happened in spring 2004 during the Sadr-al Qaeda counter-offensive? Iraqi units that dissolved would likely have joined our enemies in significant numbers under the command of "former" Baathist officers used to terrorizing their Shia soldiers into obeying. These officers were not innocent guys we pushed over the edge to fight us by our cold-heartedness. They were Baathists loyalists a threat from day one.
The next month I again addressed the issue, in “The Mythical Iraqi Army” (Posted November 5, 2003). This time I quoted a November 4, 2003 Washington Post article (the link is no longer good, of course) that argued that it was no mistake to disband the Iraqi army:
All this does not mean we should spurn the many individual Iraqi veterans willing to serve the new Iraq. On the contrary, they have been welcomed and even actively recruited. About 60 percent of the privates in the New Iraqi Army, and virtually all the officers and NCOs, have military experience. Other new security forces, such as the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps and the Facilities Protection Service, have taken in many thousands of former soldiers. Only those who served in Hussein's inner circles of security and control forces, or who reached the top four ranks of the Baath Party (about 8,000 out of nearly a quarter-million officers and NCOs in the old army) are ineligible to join the New Iraqi Army and other security forces. Although we have not so far recruited officers whose former rank was above lieutenant colonel, that is because we have not yet needed more senior ranks. As the army (and other security forces) grow, higher-ranking officers with clean records will be considered, along with potential promotions from the new organizations.
This takes the danger of bringing in the Baathists a little further and explains as I have repeatedly reminded readers, that we did in fact recruit for the new Iraqi security forces from the former security forces. What we didn't do is call up the higher ranking officers we clearly could not trust and in fact did not need since we weren't organizing higher level units yet.
The Post article also notes that at first our de-Baathification policy was precisely what I'd urged--rule out anyone at the rank of colonel or above (unless they can prove loyalty) and allow those the rank of lieutenant colonel or below in the new military (unless it can be shown they've committed crimes or were particularly loyal Baathists). The recent law in Iraq heading for approval seems to be restoring de-Baathification to his concept. If the Iraqi Shias and Kurds were too worried about the risk before, with the Iraqi government in a far stronger security position relative to the Sunni Arabs, the risk of bringing in former Baathists who might still be Baathists is much lower. Having Saddam and his devil spawn dead reduces the risk as well since who could rally these officers?
And finally, the original article still seems to insist on thinking of Sunni Arabs as poor exploited babies. Remember the last four years of terrorism directed at Shias aided or tolerated by most Sunni Arabs. Remember the three decades of Baathist rule before that during which Shias were sent to die in large numbers in a war against Iran, were slaughtered in huge numbers after the Persian Gulf War, and during which Kurds were shot and gassed in huge numbers. And then there was the quiet everyday murder of Iraqi Shias and Kurds and the torture, rape, and oppression that went with it. Oh, and don't forget the several centuries of Sunni rule before even Saddam that made Shias and Kurds second-class citizens at best.
While we must bring the Sunni Arabs into the new Iraq, don't forget that the other Iraqis have reason to resist this generosity. Sunni Arabs have turned on the jihadis to fight a common enemy, but the Sunnis still have much to prove in the years ahead.
Let's stop feeling sorry for the Sunni Arabs even as we urge them to abandon their dreams of running Iraq again and settle for a role in a free Iraq protected by rule of law and not terror.
And really, stop arguing that we disbanded the Iraqi army no matter how many times you read a newspaper article stating this is a fact.
