This writer thinks that the effect of former Saddam officers on making ISIL an effective fighting force is overstated:
Please understand that I am not denying that these men exist or that they did not make important contributions to Da’ish’s military fortunes, only that their role has been exaggerated and the reason that they have contributed has little to do with their service in Saddam’s army. There are tens of thousands of former Iraqi soldiers who fought with Da’ish, and before that with AQI. What is important about those who have become key leaders of Da’ish is that they were the ones who survived and thrived through the American occupation, the 2005–2008 Iraqi Civil War, the Surge, and then the Syrian Civil War. The vast majority didn’t. They got killed. They got injured. They got tired. They got sidelined. Unlike all of the rest, these 100–150 men figured out how to fight, how to stay alive, and how to succeed in this kind of warfare. That is why they advanced through Da’ish’s ranks and why they became important members of Da’ish’s command staff.
That is, the former Saddam officers eventually got good, but their service in Saddam's army wasn't the reason they could materially help ISIL. Further, ISIL allowed them to succeed rather than crushing their abilities in a machine of mediocrity. So it may have been more important that ISIL made them better.
This take on the effect of Saddam's boys Also partly rebuts the notion that de-Baathification critically harmed the new Iraq army because those purged officers at the time weren't actually that good.
He has a point on that. I'd figure that the best think former Baathists could provide is technical expertise in administration and technical aspects of fighting rather than combat planning and leadership--which the American forces provided, really, while training Iraqis to take over.
In addition to questions of their loyalty to a new Shia-dominated and Kurdish-tolerant government, you have to wonder just how good the Sunni Arab "ex-Baathists" would have been--even if we had recalled them after the Iraqi army self-disbanded.
