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Basmati on Iraq, de-Baathification and the Iraqi Army I thought I'd try something a bit different in this blog. I'm going to put aside my personal animosity towards ArmyMajRetired and attempt to have a debate of substance with him. I think a good topic to begin this dialog would be Iraq de-Baathification and disbanding the Iraqi Army. From what I can tell, there are two distinct and diametrically opposed positions on both of the above areas. One one hand, you have a substantial number of people who believe that removing all traces of Baathist influence in Iraq was both the right and proper thing to do. Ditto disbanding the Army. On the other hand, you have another substantial number of people who believe that de-Baathifying and disarming Iraq cripples the nascent government. I count myself among the latter group, and I'll present my case as to why I believe what I believe. I'll let others besides myself and the Major decide who has the stronger argument. Okay then: to the crux of the debate. When Great Britain cobbled together three separate and distinct factions (kurd, shiite and Sunnis) way back in 1905, they imposed a strong centralized government to bind the nation together. Whether by fortunate accident or design, they implemented more or less the "British model" which made the general populace very dependent upon government services. I realize that this model is anathema to most capitalist-leaning Americans, but it was an inspired choice for a country without any industrial base. The best way to rise to the top in Iraq was for many years through either the government ranks or the military ranks, again, not unlike Britain. Over the course of a century, this served the country of Iraq reasonably well. The Army had the additional benefit of instilling a sense of national identity among Iraqis, they may have first and foremost been Shia or Sunni or Kurd but they were also Iraqis. When the British largely withdrew from Iraq post-WWII, some rot sept into the system. One faction, the Baathists, manipulated the government skillfully until most key posts were filled by Baathists. Saddam Hussein rose through the military and eventually overthrew the civilian government with the assistance of both the military and the Baathists. The Baathists then had a dubious "legal" lock on the government power structure. Enough history for now. America began a war with Iraq and overthrew the existing government. The question then became, what to do? There was one body of thought, articulated by the State Department, the Army War College and the counterinsurgency dept of the Special Warfare command that held that to successfully continue providing government services to the people of a conquered nation, you removed the immediate two highest layers of management within a government (these managers are considered tainted) and allow other "party members" to continue running the government. The opposing view, held primarily by the civilian leadership of the US Dept of Defense, was to remove any and all trace of "party members" from the existing government function, implying that "party membership" in and of itself constituted a taint. I feel that the latter argument, which eventually prevailed as the official position of the United States government, was overly simplistic and ignored the hard realities of running a postwar occupation government. This policy, with the keen benefit of 20/20 hindsight, has been nothing short of disasterous in my opinion. Replacing an entire cadre of trained bureaucrats with essentially rank beginners solely on the basis of party membership and/or religious affliation had a tremendously adverse effect on the the occupation. Likewise, disbanding the Army. The Army was the last manifestation of "national pride" in Iraq. Summarily dismissing the Army removed the last vestige of "national pride" from the populace, and immediately created a situation of 200,000 plus unemployed resentful armed fighting men. It's an imperfect analogy, but suppose President Bush (or Clinton, your pick) was impeached and removed from power and the American army disbanded as well for their "support" of their commander in chief. I simply fail to see the logic in disbanding the Iraqi army. That's my take on things, I welcome any comments. Basmati's blog | login to post comments
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