Politics Trumped Competence When Selecting Staff to Rebuild Iraq

**Xiahou** · 09-20-2006, 02:25

Originally Posted by Pannonian

Tommy Franks was one of the few generals who had experience and were willing to take on the task. However, he was too much of a Powellist for the administration's tastes, so they soon replaced him with Bremer, who was a liberal extremist like themselves. Freedoms everywhere predictably led to anarchy and stupendous levels of corruption, as had happened in post-Tsarist Russia. Liberals elsewhere understand their idealism have to tempered by the need to avoid revolution. Given a blank slate and no need to account to the populace, the US administration in Iraq was free to pursue their liberalist dreams without the need to observe practical restrictions, and the result is what we see now.

Bremer didnt replace Franks. Franks didnt head the CPA either- it was Retired Lieutenant General Jay Garner I was thinking of. I think alot of the problems with the rampant looting lack to a clampdown on it were laid at his feet. Lemur could probably elaborate more if he's reading a book on it.

**Lemur** · 09-20-2006, 02:37

Sure, the events are pretty well documented. Garner had experience with disaster relief, and the entire "Phase IV" planning consisted of prevent starvation, hand over power to the expatriates, and get the heck out of Iraq. Garner executed his brief precisely. When the non-plan for the occupation went to hell in a handbasket, Bremer took the job, but only after demanding a free hand with reconstruction. Garner was given his walking papers.

It's a lot more involved than that, but if you really want to dig into it, there's a really good book ...

**Seamus Fermanagh** · 09-20-2006, 02:40

Originally Posted by Lemur

Sure, the events are pretty well documented. Garner had experience with disaster relief, and the entire "Phase IV" planning consisted of prevent starvation, hand over power to the expatriates, and get the heck out of Iraq. Garner executed his brief precisely. When the non-plan for the occupation went to hell in a handbasket, Bremer took the job, but only after demanding a free hand with reconstruction. Garner was given his walking papers.

It's a lot more involved than that, but if you really want to dig into it, there's a really good book ...

They really were playing it that way, even without a "government in exile" to reinstate. I always knew the aftermath had been malfed.

**Lemur** · 09-20-2006, 02:58

I'm about halfway through the book, and the insurgency is just getting properly started. It's astonishing, in retrospect, the degree to which the administration was at war with itself over what to do once the war had been won. I really can't do it justice with a few posts. Whole working groups flinging memos and reports at each other, the Executive giving nobody any hints as to its intentions until it made sudden, inexplicable pronouncements. A stunningly complete mess.

It's worth the read. Can't recommend it too highly.

**Pannonian** · 09-20-2006, 03:16

Originally Posted by Xiahou

Bremer didnt replace Franks. Franks didnt head the CPA either- it was Retired Lieutenant General Jay Garner I was thinking of. I think alot of the problems with the rampant looting lack to a clampdown on it were laid at his feet. Lemur could probably elaborate more if he's reading a book on it.

That's the one. Mea culpa. They apparently had to dig around a bit to find someone with relevant knowledge and experience who was willing to take on the mess that Iraq was going to be. Most of the other high rankers steered clear, but they somehow got Garner to agree to head the initial occupation. IIRC they announced Bremer would replace him soon after he arrived in Iraq, which wasn't exactly friendly.

As for the looting - people may have blamed him for it, but it was in practice the inevitable consequence of not having enough men to satisfactorily secure the area, something Shinseki had warned them about (leading to his "retirement"), and why other high rankers didn't want to be associated with the project. Whoever headed the CPA, the looting would have happened, given the force Rumsfeld had provided them with. And IMHO it wasn't such a significant factor anyway in the eventual unravelling of Iraq - the ultra-liberal policies Bremer later put in place were far more to blame. The looting destroyed much of the physcial infrastructure, but that can always be repaired and rebuilt. Bremer's administration utterly destroyed the social infrastructure, which was his aim, but the clueless so-so didn't understand the caveat liberals elsewhere had, that there must be something else to take its place or else the whole society falls apart. But even Bremer cannot be blamed too much, since even his policies were directed by Washington. Bush-Cheney and their neocon lackeys are directly to blame for the Iraq debacle.

**Lemur** · 09-20-2006, 04:02

Pannonian, you're about half-right on several fronts. Neither Bremer nor Garner could have done much of anything about looting -- civilian staffers sent the military lists of sites that should be protected. Nobody on the military side of things could ever say what heppened to those lists. And you can't blame it on not enough troops -- there were whoe companies without orders once Baghdad fell.

The ultimate truth is that there was contradictory planning, and none of it was firmed up at the executive level. The chaos on the streets goes right back to Rumsfeld and the Executive.

You also can't single-handedly blame Bremer for the psychic devastation of the Iraqi people. 35 years of a police state did more to kill initiative and punish the worthy than a couple of years' worth of bad decisions coming from the C.P.A.

The one thing you can fairly, squarely blame Bremer for is the demobilization of the Iraqi army. That was his call, and nobody upstairs contradicted him. We made hundreds of thousands of enemies we really, really didn't need when he gave that order.

**Xiahou** · 09-20-2006, 04:37

Originally Posted by Lemur

The one thing you can fairly, squarely blame Bremer for is the demobilization of the Iraqi army. That was his call, and nobody upstairs contradicted him. We made hundreds of thousands of enemies we really, really didn't need when he gave that order.

That's something I was always mystified by. Even if the armed forces were unusable, I would think you'd still want to give them paychecks just so you could still have them sitting around and relatively happy instead of out joining the insurgency.

**Seamus Fermanagh** · 09-20-2006, 13:45

My morning local radio jock was reading a column written in 9/02 by former secretary Webb -- now running against George Allen in VA -- in which Webb warned that the Bush Admin was completely unprepared for the aftermath of an attack on Iraq. His words seem prophetic now -- but clearly indicate that some in the administration were blinding themselves to the post-Sadam difficulties. This galls me.

**Pannonian** · 09-20-2006, 15:11

Originally Posted by Lemur

Pannonian, you're about half-right on several fronts. Neither Bremer nor Garner could have done much of anything about looting -- civilian staffers sent the military lists of sites that should be protected. Nobody on the military side of things could ever say what heppened to those lists. And you can't blame it on not enough troops -- there were whoe companies without orders once Baghdad fell.

The ultimate truth is that there was contradictory planning, and none of it was firmed up at the executive level. The chaos on the streets goes right back to Rumsfeld and the Executive.

You also can't single-handedly blame Bremer for the psychic devastation of the Iraqi people. 35 years of a police state did more to kill initiative and punish the worthy than a couple of years' worth of bad decisions coming from the C.P.A.

The one thing you can fairly, squarely blame Bremer for is the demobilization of the Iraqi army. That was his call, and nobody upstairs contradicted him. We made hundreds of thousands of enemies we really, really didn't need when he gave that order.

It's not just the demobilisation of the Iraqi army. It's also the removal of the entire civil service that ran the country, removal of all restrictions and rules governing the economy, removal of all the social sinews that held the country together. It's like a rerun of the arguments put forward by the Whigs in the 18th century, except they never dared implement those ideas in their totality in Britain, and they didn't have the muscle to implement them abroad.

It's ironic that many conservatives support the Iraq venture because it was done by a nominally conservative party, when the ideas involved are hyper-liberalist. Freedom from restrictions, belief in the idea of progress, export of these ideals - classic liberalism.

**Lemur** · 09-22-2006, 05:57

I've been fascinated by the total lack of fallout surrounding this story. No media outlets have picked it up, and it hasn't been mentioned on any televised media that I've been able to track. Some bloggers are chattering about it, and that's about it, with the exception of the National Review's ferocious defense of Jim O'Beirne, which is hardly surprising, since one of the supposed crony hires was the daughter of an NR staffer.

We hear about the liberal elite and their liberal media ad nauseam, so it's interesting to see a piece like this pass without a ripple. Perhaps the bureau chiefs decided that nobody could be bothered with examining events that transpired all of three years sgo. Who's got that sort of attention span?