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Subject:
The Guns Of August In Iraq
SYSOP
8/17/2014 8:11:44 AM
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Johnny
8/17/2014 1:43:07 PM
"The main reason the U.S. disbanded the Iraqi armed forces after 2003 was the fact that nearly all the key personnel were Sunni Arabs"
"The main reason the U.S. disbanded the Iraqi armed forces after 2003 was the fact that the U.S. didn't have the foggiest idea of what to do after invading Iraq."
FTFY
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avatar3
True
8/17/2014 4:29:22 PM
Bush put an idiot named Bremmer in charge. Bremmer broke up the standing army which then went underground and the real battle of Iraq began. Never break a poor mans rice bowl. :7(
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WarNerd
8/17/2014 9:02:04 PM
It would have been necessary at the time to remove the Sunni members of the military since the Coalition was still searching for Saddam, his sons, and their supporters. The Sunni military was still loyal to him for the most part, and he was their ticket back into power.
Keeping them out afterwards is more problematic. Might have gotten the Status of Forces Agreement passed just to keep US troops around to block any coup attempt if the old (Sunni) officer corp was still around.
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Reactive
8/17/2014 9:54:05 PM
Well removing the Sunni members of the military and police essentially meant removing almost ALL military and police which is, in effect, what led to the power vacuum - you are crediting Sadam with too much residual goodwill (he was not universally loved by Sunnis) and the "nation-builders" with far too much intelligence - what happened was the end result of unadulterated arrogance and ignorance.
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avatar3
WarNerd
8/18/2014 9:48:37 AM
It was actually worse than you think . Iraq had an entire series of protective services that had nothing to do with combat operations. Dams, Power Plants, Archeological Sites, Medical Facilities, Traffic Police, etc. all had security guards which were dismissed. The result, they stole everything - not just weapons and ammunition but big stuff, even Fire and Trash Trucks. What they didn't steal or vandalize was stolen or stripped by the mob. The people who worked in those places were afraid to leave their houses to go to work, which of course compounded problems.
And what did the US Army do? Nothing, we had no orders to take over policing operations and unless a looter had a weapon, they were left alone.
:7(
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joe6pack
8/18/2014 12:00:22 PM
The disbanding the Iraqi organizations post invasion, is sort of the standard playbook when they were created / staffed by the prior dictator / nutcase.
I'm not really confident that the average Iraqi on the street would have been all that happy / confident to cooperate (or not actively work against the U.S.) while (A) Saddam was and family were still on the lose (B) Saddam's appointed henchmen were still running the major institutions.
Where the U.S. (and I sort of lay this on Rumsfeld) failed was in managing the fact that we were disbanding those organizations. Post WWII, the U.S. didn't have a whole lot of confidence in the German or Japanese governmental systems.. The U.S. "Constabulary" was formed in Germany to more or less police the joint.. it had more than a corp assigned to it.. something like 40,000 men. MacArthur all but declared himself Emperor and set an entire army to policing Japan (which sadly impacted their ability to fight.. come Korea).
I think the bottom line was, we didn't have the manpower to adequately garrison / police Iraq.. so we didn't even try until it was entirely too late... While I dislike making calls based on hindsight, my initial (and just about only criticism) of the initial Iraq invasion was that we went in with far too few troops. Rumsfeld was concerned with beating the Iraqi Army (of which we had more than enough for).. but not nearly enough to manage the aftermath. The various generals that warned about this.. were dismissed or were ignored.
my decade later.. 2 cents anyhow..
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avatar3
Sage Advice
8/19/2014 3:08:32 AM
Well you know what they say; "we go to war with the administration we have, not the one we really need!" :7)
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