Dick Cheney: Letting Iraq Military Disband Was Mistake.

It was a mistake and the US Military knew it was from Day One.

They were not "let" disband, After ORHA (the group charged with rebuilding the government) was set up to fail, Paul Bremer and his CPA completely screwed the country:

Per wikipedia: (sorry, i don't know how to mark something as Off site content)

According to No End in Sight, there were three especially grave mistakes made by L. Paul Bremer, the head of the CPA:

* Not providing enough troops to maintain order, which led to the absence of martial law after the country was conquered. The ORHA had identified at least twenty crucial government buildings and cultural sites in Bagdad, but none of the locations were protected; only the oil ministry was guarded. With no police force or national army to maintain order, ministries and buildings were looted for their desks, tables, chairs, phones, and computers. Large machines and rebars from buildings were also looted. Among those pillaged were Iraqi museums, containing priceless artifacts from some of the earliest human civilizations, which No End in Sight suggested had sent chilling signals to the average Iraqi that the American forces did not intend to maintain law and order. Eventually, the widespread looting turned into an organized destruction of Baghdad. The destruction of libraries and records, in combination with the "De-Ba'athification", had ruined the bureaucracy that existed prior to the U.S. invasion. ORHA staff reported that they had to start from scratch to rebuild the government infrastructure. Rumsfeld initially dismissed the widespread looting as no worse than rioting in a major American city.

* Bremer's first official executive order implementing "De-Ba'athification" in the early stages of the occupation, as he considered members disloyal. Saddam Hussein's ruling Ba'ath Party counted as its members a huge majority of Iraq's governmental employees, including educational officials and some teachers, as it was not possible to attain such positions unless one had membership. By order of the CPA, these skilled and often apolitical individuals were banned from holding any positions in Iraq's new government.

* Bremer's second official executive order disbanding all of Iraq's military entities, which went against the advice of the U.S. military and made 500,000 young men unemployed. The U.S. Army had wanted the Iraqi troops retained, as they knew the locals and could maintain order, but Bremer refused as he felt that they could be disloyal. However, many former Iraqi soldiers, many with extended families to support, then decided that their best chance for a future was to join a militia force. The huge arms depots were available for pillaging by anyone who wanted weapons and explosives, so the former Iraqi soldiers converged on the military stockpiles. The U.S. knew about the location of weapon caches, but said that it lacked the troops to secure them; ironically, these arms would later be used against the Americans and new Iraqi government forces.





watch all of this video. This is strait from the horse's mouth on how Iraq got screwed up to the point it is today

Originally posted by JIMC5499
reply to post by Paulioetc15

 

There could be some truth to what you say. Personally I think that they expected the Iraqi Army to put up more of a fight than they did and were not prepared for winning that fast. Rather than have large groups of potentially hostile people, behing your lines, with minimal forces to guard them, they decided to disband the Iraqi Army. 20/20 hindsight proved them wrong.

Cheney never said they disbanded anything. He said soilders just packed up and went home onec the army was defeted. "disbanded" was the word the writer of the artical used. Its very much a misrepresentation of what really happened.

Do any of you military experts think that insurgent types were going to stay with whatever structure was left of the old army to join a new american controlled army? They were what? Waiting for orders to disband before they joined any insurgency? They didnt have anything else to do so they joined the insurgency?

Originally posted by Erongaricuaro
Were those Cheney's words used in the headline, "Letting Iraq military disband was a mistake"? I believe what was done was we disbanded them would be more accurate, which many saw as a mistake immediately. Is he just now coming to that realization? And is that his defense and rationalization, we let it happen?

edit on 20-9-2011 by Erongaricuaro because: (no reason given)

Whatever our policy was we were going to face more conflict. Iraqi forces did in fact get reorganized and were deployed.

Lets talk about how many bus loads of new police recruits were executed by the insurgents and Baathists. It wasnt like everyone in Iraq would have embraced the Iraqi army anyway.

reply to post by Logarock


Hopefully for the better. But i believe that The war should not start if Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld planned it better.