The CPA, Bremer and Year One in Iraq

[jcustis]

There's a gmail account for Bremer at the end of the article. Any chance he could be convinced to recollect a bit further for the SWC? A lot of this doesn't make sense, some of it appears to be pure speculation that I'd like to see backed up, and a great deal seems as though he finally lost his bearing and refused to fade to black.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...051102054.html

NO MORE MR. PUNCHING BAG
What We Got Right in Iraq

By L. Paul Bremer
Sunday, May 13, 2007; Page B01

Once conventional wisdom congeals, even facts can't shake it loose. These days, everyone "knows" that the Coalition Provisional Authority made two disastrous decisions at the beginning of the U.S. occupation of Iraq: to vengefully drive members of the Baath Party from public life and to recklessly disband the Iraqi army. The most recent example is former CIA chief George J. Tenet, whose new memoir pillories me for those decisions (even though I don't recall his ever objecting to either call during our numerous conversations in my 14 months leading the CPA). Similar charges are unquestioningly repeated in books and articles. Looking for a neat, simple explanation for our current problems in Iraq, pundits argue that these two steps alienated the formerly ruling Sunnis, created a pool of angry rebels-in-waiting and sparked the insurgency that's raging today. The conventional wisdom is as firm here as it gets. It's also dead wrong...

Like most Americans, I am disappointed by the difficulties the nation has encountered after our quick 2003 victory over Saddam Hussein. But the U.S.-led coalition was absolutely right to strip away the apparatus of a particularly odious tyranny. Hussein modeled his regime after Adolf Hitler's, which controlled the German people with two main instruments: the Nazi Party and the Reich's security services. We had no choice but to rid Iraq of the country's equivalent organizations to give it any chance at a brighter future.

[John T. Fishel]

Mr Bremer has reiterated what he said in his book about the de-baathification. I believe that he makes this case as well as acknowledging the mistake of handing that process over to the Iraqis prematurely. With regard to disbanding the army, his case is weaker. First, he adds a number of layers to what he said in the book. Second, he neglects to point out that his predecessor, LTG Jay Garner, and his staff were in contact with the officers of the regular Iraqi army. Garner's point man on this was COL Paul Hughes. Paul told me that Bremer cut the rug out from under ORHA's plan with disastrous results. Hughes today is at the US Institute of Peace and was one of the senior staffers on the Iraq Study Group.

I had heard Bremer's position articulated by one of his senior staffers, Dr. William J. Olson, now at the DOD regional center for Near East and South Asia. While I have a lot of respect for Bill, my sense at the time of these conversations was that Paul had it closer to right. Bremer's expanded explanation seems to me to be one that is seeking justification for a poor policy decision after the fact, although I could be wrong.

[SWCAdmin]

I probably need to get his book and learn more about his viewpoint.

I am certainly one who cringed severely at the time, and continue to buy in to the CW against de-Baathification that he attempts to counter here. And I believe I've made a post or two here saying that.

I don't know what shining light in a short WaPo article could have turned me around 180 and had me drinking the Kool-Aid. It didn't happen from this piece. Two points in particular that hit me yet again are the delivery of the de-Baathification directive from on high via Feith on the tip of a sledgehammer, and the mental leap from an army that was wrong to keep but was then right to reconstitute with 80%+ of the same folks.

But I will say there are nuances to this whole op that still remain lost to me, and that were real issues at the time, immersed in uncertainty and friction, that are not just revisionist justifications (at least not all). And that ORHA / CPA op was such an ad hocracy, it sure as hell was a force of will just showing up there to do the job. And a very big one it was.

[Tom Odom]

Cynic that I am, I see Bremer's piece as a counter to Tenet's book -- and a bit of advertising to resurrect his book as a point of interest.

I understand that Tenet and Feith are both teaching at Georgetown. I guess Bremer should do the same thing and then we could have a panel of 3 who point fingers, deny, and then calim that they really got it right--as in Bremer's case.

Tom

[Jimbo]

I have to go with John T Fishel on this one. My sources who are/were as well placed or better than John's, have told me the same thing that John's source at USIP stated as far as Bremer and De-baathification.

[SWJED]

16 May Washington Post commentary - What Bremer Got Wrong in Iraq by Nir Rosen.

I arrived in Iraq before L. Paul Bremer arrived in May 2003 and stayed on long after his ignominious and furtive departure in June 2004 -- long enough to see the tragic consequences of his policies in Iraq. So I was disappointed by the indignant lack of repentance on full display in his Outlook article on Sunday.

In it, the former head of the Coalition Provisional Authority argues that he "was absolutely right to strip away the apparatus of a particularly odious tyranny," including the Baath Party and the Iraqi army. He complains about "critics who've never spent time in Iraq" and "don't understand its complexities." But Bremer himself never understood Iraq, knew no Arabic, had no experience in the Middle East and made no effort to educate himself -- as his statements clearly show...

[FascistLibertarian]

Like most Americans, I am disappointed by the difficulties the nation has encountered after our quick 2003 victory over Saddam Hussein. But the U.S.-led coalition was absolutely right to strip away the apparatus of a particularly odious tyranny. Hussein modeled his regime after Adolf Hitler's, which controlled the German people with two main instruments: the Nazi Party and the Reich's security services. We had no choice but to rid Iraq of the country's equivalent organizations to give it any chance at a brighter future.

The de-Nazification was a success but members of the Nazi party, Nazi and German Scientisits and the German regime kept high positions. The idea of trying to ban all Nazis and figure out who they all were famously got bogged down.

I do not think the comparions of Sadam's Iraq to Hitler's Germany is a very good one. Working with the Germans and Japanese after WWII (where they were soundly beaten after a long extreme fight) was a major reason for the lack of chaos. In Japan the head was kept and in Germany they cut off the head and kept the body. In Hungry many Arrow Cross members joined the Communists in '45. The US could have had many people join their side at the beginning. Bremer and Rumsfeld fumbled the ball and others are paying for it now.

I agree he sounds like he is trying to justify a bad policy. I wonder how much Bremer had studied his own country's occupation of Germany and Japan?

[WVO]

I do not think the comparions of Sadam's Iraq to Hitler's Germany is a very good one. Working with the Germans and Japanese after WWII (where they were soundly beaten after a long extreme fight) was a major reason for the lack of chaos. In Japan the head was kept and in Germany they cut off the head and kept the body. In Hungry many Arrow Cross members joined the Communists in '45. The US could have had many people join their side at the beginning. Bremer and Rumsfeld fumbled the ball and others are paying for it now.

I agree he sounds like he is trying to justify a bad policy. I wonder how much Bremer had studied his own country's occupation of Germany and Japan?

Hear, hear!

There's a pretty good book called What We Owe Iraq by a guy called Noah Feldman, a law professor who worked at CPA in 2003. He recounts that while flying to Iraq, many of the CPA civilians were reading books on the Marshall Plan and US post-war occupation in Germany and Japan rather than reading about the Shiites or any other Iraq-related material. What did the occupation authorities read when they got assigned to the military governments in Japan and Germany? What prepared them to do as well as they did? I think the answer is that they well understood the cultures of Japan and Germany - think of MacArthur keeping the Emperor around.

The fact that we focus so much on our own experience (which is obviously better than not focusing on any experience) rather than than the culture in which we will operate is critical. Furthermore, to maximize success we need this knowledge before undertaking an operation, not during or after.

By the way, the book does a good job of spelling out the moral imperative for the US to stay in Iraq until stability is restored. It carries out the kind of discussion we should be having Nationally, rather then the simplified "in or out" pissing match that seems to be going on in Washington these days.

[Mike in Hilo]

Strikes me that since guys of Bremer's age who had attained Ambassadorial/Career Minister rank in State and who also served in CORDS during their junior years were quite numerous, "they" might have looked to that pool to provide the CPA head (if they were determined that it be a civilian, which may have been a mistake). Given the status to which these guys rose, at least some must have also been appropriately politically connected...

Cheers,
Mike
.

[John T. Fishel]

Mike--

You raise a fascinating point when you question the need for a civilian to have headed the CPA. Should it have been a civilian? Is a retired General (Jay Garner, for example) not a civilian? Would an active soldier (like Macarthur or Lucius Clay) have been a better choice? Should ownership of the occupation have remained in DOD or moved to State?

My answers (humble opinion or not) are: 1. Not only should it have remained in DOD but the responsibility fell on the Combattant Commander (COMCENT) or a sub-unified commander as has been created (de facto) in Iraq first under George Casey and now Dave Petraeus. The individual specifically responsible for PRC should have been in command of all military and civilian elements assigned to that mission and reported directly to the #1 soldier in Iraq. Whether he was military, civilian, or some combination (retired, reservist, etc) is, I think, immaterial. 2. To my mind, a retired officer and a reservist, NOT on active status, is a civilian - but one with a very useful military background. 3. The critical organizational issue, IMO, was one of not dividing command of the occupation as was, in fact, done. Finally, although not one of my semi-rhetorical questions, a friend who served on Bremer's staff pointed out to me that Bremer was ill supported by OSD - only a little of which comes out in Bremer's book.

I do like your idea that a good civilian choice would have been one of those guys who cut their teeth on CORDS. It waould have been useful background.

Cheers

JohnT

[Mike in Hilo]

I couldn't agree more, John. You've put it better than I could have....Mike.