Part of the problem is that the State Dept. screwed President Bush and Defense Dept. by replacing Garner with one of their “guys” Bremer who couldn’t do the worse job with occupation in Iraq than anyone would had thought. I believe that Garner planned to keep the Ba’athist Army intact after replacing some Saddam Loyalists as commanders.
The illogical disconnect in 2003 was mind-boggling: we couldn’t have BOTH a light US/Coalition force footprint AND abolish the Iraqi military. The DoD dictated the former and the State Dept. dictated the latter. It was a recipe for disaster, and this is not 20/20 hindsight. I said so at the time, but I’m just a middle-aged keyboard babbler.