Who disbanded the Iraqi Army? You know you live in a free country when you turn to the Op-Ed page of the New York Times and you read Paul Bremer's defense of his own actions ("How I Didn't Dismantle Iraq's Army") — right next to a withering column by Roger Cohen (his second in as many outings) which reads, in part, "The fraying Bush Administration still can't work out who took the decision to disband the Iraqi Army in 2003; that's grotesque."
This "who disbanded the Iraqi Army" blame game (and the Olympian finger-pointing it has launched) had me thinking back today to our first patrol into downtown Baghdad after the city fell. It was just two days after the first "thunder run" into the center of town, by the Army's Third Infantry Division under Col. Perkins. We traveled the very same route as the 3rd I.D. had. I was with our dear late friend Gen. Wayne Downing, riding in the only vehicle they could offer us: a "thin-skinned" (non-armored) Humvee — a colossally dumb, dangerous and cavalier act, in retrospect. We had no business driving in the only non-armored vehicle in a seven-vehicle mechanized armored column. The images we saw along the way are permanently burned in my memory: the blown-apart and burned vehicles (many still containing the bloated, burned bodies of drivers and/or entire families who'd made the mistake of being on that stretch of road on that day); the U.S. soldiers stopping pedestrians and doing under-clothing searches for bombs. Fires were burning, the smell was overpowering, there were live firefights going on in the streets — even while the commanding generals were being briefed at one of Saddam's palaces by Col. Perkins (the reason for our mission in the first place). Everyone was a potential target. General Downing kept calling attention to groups of young men — he immediately identified them (in his judgment) as former members of Saddam's Republican Guard — and noted, with his trained eye, that they had just slipped from their Army uniforms into civilian clothes. There was something about their bearing, their haircuts, their demeanor — that tipped off their identity to the veteran military man. On more than one occasion, General Downing (who, while long retired, was the most senior-ranking man in our Humvee by more than four stars and by several decades) ordered the young private at the wheel to drive ahead and get out of the situation we were in, because of the crackle of tension in the air (not to mention the not-so-distant crackle of rounds being fired). Of all the memories of that day, I remember the strong sense that I was literally watching the Iraqi Army walk off the job — never to be re-constituted the same way again. I'll leave it to others to debate the policy of it, but I'll never shake the memory of it.
Reprinted with permission from the NBC News blog, The Daily Nightly.
June 24, 2003, President Bush declared al-Qaeda's leadership largely defunct
2003 Mission Accomplished
2004 We are making PROGRESS
2005 We are in the LAST THROES
2006 We should be able to draw down troops starting in Sept 2006
2007 January: A Surge of 22,500 will show significant results by July 2007
2007 July: We are making progress, wait until September
2007 September: We are making progress, wait until September 2008. We have only had the "SURGE" for 3 months.
If we STAY THE COURSE for one more year only 1000 more American Troops will die, 6000 more American Troops will be Wounded, 2500 Iraqi Security Forces will be killed, 10,000 Iraqi Security Forces will be Wounded, 15,000 more Iraqi Civilians will be KILLED, 40,000 more Iraqi Civilians will be wounded, 750,000 more Iraqis will be displaced from their homes, the Iraqi Parliament will meet 3 more of the 2007 benchmarks, still less than 50% of the 18 benchmarks and The GENERALS on the GROUND will report they are making progress and ask for 1 more year. The Bush Administration will ask for anther $200 Billion for 2009.
WAKE UP AMERICA! We should not have our Military trying to referee a CIVIL WAR in a country where democracy is a FOREIGN WORD and may NEVER be achieved.
After reading it, it occured to me that what you have described is a simple bank robbery gone bad. We now have the bank robbers squabbling over who messed up, and how come they ended up killing a guard or two, and setting off the alarm.
We are there to rob Iraqis - on behalf of US corporations. And we somewhat botched the job.
Brian, Brian, Brian...its time for all good men to come to the aid of their country. The telling of a graphic was scene is not enough. The telling of how that scene happened and why and who is to blame-yes blame-is what is required to help our country to start mending.To ensure that it doesn't happen in Iran.
Blame is not a four letter word. Blame is necessary to hold those that did it accountable. To ensure that there are consequences to incompetency and blatant evil.
The time for fence sitting is over. If you have a microphone...its time. The media, Brian-that's you-needs to access blame. There are not two equal sides to everything. Some things and some people are wrong and bad. Its the way it is.
Not one major corporate media outlet points out that "under the Nuremberg Principles, the supreme international crime is that of commencing a war of aggression, because it is the crime from which all war crimes follow."
WE are the rogue nation. Nobody will tell the truth.
Thank you for this sobering reminder of how utterly surreal the debate over this war is here in the US.
How about the 380 TONS of high explosives that disappeared from al Qaqaa?
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/25/iraq.explosives/
What is ludicrous about the Iraqi Army debate is simple: those former Army soldiers and officers are still around. They could easily be recruited back. What has CHANGED is that they are NO LONGER INTERESTED in fighting shoulder-to-shoulder, but rather, face-to-face. Capiche?
But what is your point Brian?
does anyone recall the reaction when, at the end of WW2 in Europe, Patton wanted to keep the Wehrmacht, such as it was, intact and keep Nazi civil servants in their jobs?
Damned if you do and damned if you don't!!!
Any uniformed Iraqi with half a brain would have ditched his uniform; six months bonus pay might have convinced most of them to put the uniforms back on. That would have been dirt cheap too.