Posted on 01/09/2008 12:37:02 PM PST by neverdem
“I am a ring on your finger.” — Al Qaeda in Iraq member Abu Anas to Abu Musab Al Zarqawi
Since Abu Musab Al Zarqawi formed the Al Qaeda in Iraq franchise, the terrorist group that destroyed the World Trade Center has fought American soldiers and what they call the near enemy, fellow Muslims, instead of civilians in the homeland of the far enemy, the United States. This may be good for Americans, but it has been a catastrophe for Iraqis – especially in Baghdad, Ramadi, and Fallujah.
I had lunch with several Iraqi Police officers and spoke to them afterward about this searing conflict that raged for years in their city and that only quieted down a few months ago. Trauma and war are still fresh, enough so that they don't want me to publish their names or their pictures. Nor do they want me to identify their police station. So I’ll just say they work somewhere in the vicinity of Fallujah. And I’ll call them Omar, Mohammed, Ahmed, and Mahmoud – generic Arabic names which are pseudonyms.
“What did you think of the Americans a few years ago when they first got here?” I said.
“The United States made a big mistake when they invaded Iraq,” Omar said. “They destroyed the Iraqi Army. They destroyed the whole army when they invaded. They lost their right hand against the insurgents. They lost a good partner that could have really helped in the future. In the beginning if they had just kept the Iraqi Army and the Iraqi Police, somebody would have been backing them.”
(Excerpt) Read more at michaeltotten.com ...
He’s the ring around my toilet bowl...
“One ring to rule them all and in the darkness bind them.”
Didn't they pretty much fall over and surrender to us?
I mean we were taking prisoner BEFORE the war even started- they were linig up to give up before the war, and we had to tell them "no it's not time to give up yet"
Never true. The common soldier took off his uniform and went home. The top leadership was all Sadaam lackeys and went into hiding/fighting the US with him. A majority of the mid-level officer ranks were tainted/untrusted, in the eyes of a majority of Iraqis - guilt by association. The non-commissioned officer corps was untrained and unprofessional. The "Iraqi Army" was not destroyed - it disappeared. Rescuing it as it was was never going to be acceptable to the Shia or the Kurds.
“Didn’t they pretty much fall over and surrender to us?
I mean we were taking prisoner BEFORE the war even started- they were linig up to give up before the war, and we had to tell them “no it’s not time to give up yet”
I think he was pointing to the fact that after the fall of Baghdad we disbanded the Iraqi Army. I believe that was our biggest mistake. We should have purged the Senior Officer Corps, but left the rest of the army intact. Things might not have gotten so out of control early on. But that’s just my Monday Morning Quarterback opinion.
I think they let some of them come back after the purge, didnt they?
Same with Bath party officials who only joined to party because you had to in oreder to get a job.
Having said this, I agree that it would have been a great strategic move to have had the army turn around and go after him for us...
Zarqawi now resides in the innermost, darkest ring.
Our major problem wasn't the insurgency, it was the aid and comfort provided to the insurgency by leftists as well as Islamists in Europe & the US and their success in lobbying our government and in dominating our press with defeatist mythology.
No he is talking about Bremer telling the Iraqi Army to go home.....that was a bad decision in hindsight.
We didn’t destroy the Iraqi Army. Paul Bremer, consulting no one and with no authority from Washington, disbanded the Iraqi Army and police.
Hey! I lived around Underhill Center for a couple, right under Mt. Mansfield. Loved it. Anyway, in his own defense Bremer wrote this article in the NYTimes, if it means anything.
www.nytimes.com/2007/09/06/opinion/06bremer.html
Just for argument sake since I am horrible with names and just googled him.
thanks for the link, important to note what Bremer says here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/06/opinion/06bremer.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
September 6, 2007
Op-Ed Contributor
How I Didn’t Dismantle Iraq’s Army
By L. PAUL BREMER III
“The Iraqi Army of the future cannot be an extension of the present army, which has been made into a tool of dictatorship.” — Report by the Department of State’s Future of Iraq Project, May 2002
IT has become conventional wisdom that the decision to disband Saddam Hussein’s army was a mistake, was contrary to American prewar planning and was a decision I made on my own. In fact the policy was carefully considered by top civilian and military members of the American government. And it was the right decision.
By the time Baghdad fell on April 9, 2003, the Iraqi Army had simply dissolved. On April 17 Gen. John Abizaid, the deputy commander of the Army’s Central Command, reported in a video briefing to officials in Washington that “there are no organized Iraqi military units left.” The disappearance of Saddam Hussein’s old army rendered irrelevant any prewar plans to use that army. So the question was whether the Coalition Provisional Authority should try to recall it or to build a new one open to both vetted members of the old army and new recruits. General Abizaid favored the second approach.
In the weeks after General Abizaid’s recommendation, the coalition’s national security adviser, Walter Slocombe, discussed options with top officials in the Pentagon, including Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. They recognized that to recall the former army was a practical impossibility because postwar looting had destroyed all the bases.
Moreover, the largely Shiite draftees of the army were not going to respond to a recall plea from their former commanders, who were primarily Sunnis. It was also agreed that recalling the army would be a political disaster because to the vast majority of Iraqis it was a symbol of the old Baathist-led Sunni ascendancy.
On May 8, 2003, before I left for Iraq, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld gave me a memo titled “Principles for Iraq-Policy Guidelines” that specified that the coalition “will actively oppose Saddam Hussein’s old enforcers — the Baath Party, Fedayeen Saddam, etc.” and that “we will make clear that the coalition will eliminate the remnants of Saddam’s regime.” The next day Mr. Rumsfeld told me that he had sent the “Principles” paper to the national security adviser and the secretary of state.
Meanwhile, Walter Slocombe’s consultations with Americans officials in Washington and Baghdad showed that they understood that the only viable course was to build a new, professional force open to screened members of the old army. Mr. Slocombe drafted an order to accomplish these objectives. I sent a preliminary draft of this order to the secretary of defense on May 9. The next day I sent the draft to the Defense Department’s general counsel, William J. Haynes, as well as to Mr. Wolfowitz; the under secretary for policy, Douglas Feith; the head of Central Command, Gen. Tommy Franks; and to the coalition’s top civil administrator at the time, Jay Garner, asking for comments.
On May 13, en route to Baghdad, Mr. Slocombe briefed senior British officials in London who told him they recognized that “the demobilization of the Iraqi military is a fait accompli.” His report added that “if some U.K. officers or officials think that we should try to rebuild or reassemble the old R.A. (Republican Army), they did not give any hint of it in our meetings, and in fact agreed with the need for vigorous de-Baathification, especially in the security sector.”
Over the following week, Mr. Slocombe continued discussions about the planned order with top Pentagon officials, including Mr. Feith. During that same period, Lt. Gen. David McKiernan, the field commander of the coalition forces in Iraq, received and cleared the draft order. I briefed Secretary Rumsfeld on the issue several times, and forwarded a final draft of the proposed order for his approval on May 19.
Walter Slocombe subsequently received detailed comments on the draft order incorporating the views of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Office of the Secretary of Defense, making clear that the top civilian and military staff in the Pentagon, as well as the commanders in the field, had reviewed the proposal. Another coalition adviser, Dan Senor, spent the night of May 22 coordinating the text of the announcement with Mr. Rumsfeld’s close adviser Lawrence Di Rita. Apart from minor edits to the order, none of the military or civilian officials raised objections to the proposal to create a new Iraqi army or to formally dissolve Saddam Hussein’s security apparatus.
On May 22, I sent to President Bush, through Secretary Rumsfeld, my first report since arriving in Iraq. I reviewed our activities since arrival, including our de-Baathification policy. I then alerted the president that “I will parallel this step with an even more robust measure dissolving Saddam’s military and intelligence structures.” The same day, I briefed the president on the plan via secure video. The president sent me a note on May 23 in which he thanked me for my report and noted that “you have my full support and confidence.”
The decision not to recall Saddam Hussein’s army was thoroughly considered by top officials in the American government. At the time, this decision was not controversial. When Mr. Slocombe held a press conference in Baghdad on May 23 to explain the decision, only two reporters showed up — neither of them Americans. The first I heard of doubts about the decision was in the fall of 2003 after the insurgency had picked up speed.
Moreover, we were right to build a new Iraqi Army. Despite all the difficulties encountered, Iraq’s new professional soldiers are the country’s most effective and trusted security force. By contrast, the Baathist-era police force, which we did recall to duty, has proven unreliable and is mistrusted by the very Iraqi people it is supposed to protect.
L. Paul Bremer III was the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq from 2003 to 2004.
Using the old Iraqi army worked real well for us in Fallujah...
btt
My thoughts exactly—and Osama the dark lord Sauron?
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