[Cheburashka]

And of course, Bremer, by disbanding all units and officials did not help matters.
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Mostly I agree with you, but not about this.

The Iraqi Army was so politicized that keeping it would have left the Baathists in control of the Army, and they would have been undermining the new democratic government. There would have been no loyalty to it, the Army would be just waiting for the Americans to leave.

Think of the Reichswehr in Germany between the World Wars. Zero loyalty to the Wiemar Republic. Think of the average South American army in the 19th and early-mid 20th centuries. "We are the real country and the politicians are to be put in power and overthrown at our whim."

The results were better in West Germany and Japan after the war. Complete disbandment and a whole new Bundeswehr/Self-Defence Force, which knew it's place in the nation.

Lenin would have been a blip in Russian history if he hadn't abolished the old Imperial Army and started fresh with the Worker's-Peasant's Red Army.

[Prost1]

The de-baathification and de-nazification are not comparable.

Iraq is a hodgepodge of cultures and peoples, some with long standing (millenium) hatred one against the other.
The shia in charge of the police in the north is as bad as the sunni in charge in the south.

It would have been better to constitute a Shia security force for their area and Sunni for their area. Since Baghdad in mixed, it would have been best to use the Euphrates as a DMZ and move entire communities from one side to the other and eliminate the slums while they were at it.

IOW and imo, there were better options than what Bremer chose. We shall soon see if Saddam and his henchman are executed, who from the Sunni tribes comes forward as the leader. I am thinking it might be a red-headed guy.