The Bush Administration is not exactly known for its high level of intellect. For instance, Alberto Gonzales, who can't seem to "recall" just about anything he's done since he's been Attorney General. Or Douglas Feith, who Gen. Tommy Franks famously called "the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth." But L. Paul Bremer, who administered the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq from May 2003 to June 2004, definitely has to take the prize for idiocy with his current column in the Washington Post. Let's see if we can follow "Jerry" Bremer's reasoning here.1. The "conventional wisdom," that Bremer made a huge mistake in disbanding the Iraqi army and "vengefully driv[ing] members of the Baath Party from public life" (aka, "de=Baathification") is "dead wrong."
1a. These charges "are unquestioningly repeated in books and articles." Only one problem...the books and articles I've read on this subject, such as Fiasco by Thomas Ricks, lay out the facts in excruciating detail, that Bremer's orders were disastrous. Yet Bremer argues that Ricks (Bremer doesn't mention him by name; perhaps that's because he hasn't read Ricks' devastating book?) and many others are "dead wrong."
2. Why are Ricks and others "dead wrong?" Not because of any evidence which contradicts all those books and articles. Oh no, that would be using logic and fact, and that's not the Bush Republcan way. Instead, according to L. Paul "Jerry" Bremer (what IS this guy's name, anyway?!?), the critics are "dead wrong" because - I'm not making this up - "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." That's right, Iraq in 2003 was pretty much Nazy Germany in 1945. You know, that same Nazi Germany that almost conquered the world, versus the Iraqi regime which almost conquered...er, Kuwait? Duhhhhhh.....
3. After massively violating Godwin's Law, which says that "overuse of the Nazi/Hitler comparison should be avoided, as it robs the valid comparisons of their impact," where can Bremer go but uphill? Well, think again, because believe it or not, Bremer actually manages to go downhill. Thus, Bremer makes the absurd, laughable (if it weren't so sad) case that "there was no Iraqi army to disband" anyway. Bremer continues with his revionism, arguing (without any facts to back him up, of course, except that these people were Nazis - or something) that "the political consequences of recalling the army would have been catastrophic." Finally, Bremer argues - once again with no evidence to back up his assertions - that disgruntled/unemployed former members of the Ba'ath Party and Iraqi military "are not fighting because they weren't given a chance to earn a living." Well, yes Jerry, a lot of them ARE fighting, at least in part, because they're extremely disgruntled and unemployed.
4. In sum, the "true responsibility for today's bloodshed rests with these people and their al-Qaeda collaborators," not with L. Paul "Jerry" Bremer, who President Bush rewarded for his fine work fighting Nazis...er, Ba'athists...er, someone...with the Medal of Freedom - "our nation's highest civil award" - on December 14, 2004. I couldn't find the words "heckuva job, Jerry" in that speech, but I'm going to keep looking. Or maybe Bush just mixed up FEMA (mis)Director Michael "Brownie" Brown with CPA (mis)Administrator L. Paul "Jerry" Bremer?
In fairness, it must be hard for Bush, with so many incomptent "yes men," buffoons and idiots surrounding him, to keep them all straight. I guess it's tough being the "decider," having God speak through you, and fighting to protect ExxonMobil and Halliburton every day of the week. So let's cut Bush and Bremer some slack. After all, they ARE fighting Nazis...er, liberals...er, environmentalists...er, the American people. And that, after all, has got to be tough work.
The three mentions:
We were following in the footsteps of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower in postwar Germany....[T]he CPA decree was much less far-reaching than Eisenhower's de-Nazification law, which affected all but the lowest-ranking former Nazis.
Eisenhower had barred Nazis not just from holding government jobs but "from positions of importance in quasi-public and private enterprises.The Iraqi law merely prohibited these top party officials from holding government positions, leaving them free to find jobs elsewhere..."
Devastating article and required reading for anyone who doesn't fathom the profound long term misery and chaos emanating from the Grand Fiasco in Iraq.
Anyone who shows up in a "powersuit" and cufflinks while claiming to "rebuild" Iraq is suspect.
Anyway, I don't have any love for Bremer, but as far as I can tell, he gave it everything he had. I don't know if anyone could have taken charge at that moment, and done things so differently as to avoid the present situation. It's a large country with a large population, and there simply weren't enough occupation forces to handle it, even without considering all the weapons and munitions left unsecured when Saddam's government fell. Ten years of planning by Centcom were thrown out, and replaced with -- nothing. And therein lies the story.
Clearly needed number of soldiers has been downplayed from the beginning of this war, up to the present.
here's the link to the main page for his chat
here's the link to the question submission page: http://discuss.washi...
Paul Bremer was the very worst kind of leader Iraq needed at that time. He was really disconnected from it all. He is the one who made sure that we all put the iraqis at an arms length. With very few exceptions, like in the Airports where I was an Airport Director under the CPA, Iraqis were not hired for any significant work with the coalition and when the screening under debathifacation began we had to let go of just about alll of our talanted Iraq engineers and planners.
Good people who wanted to see the fall of Saddam turn into something wonderful for Iraq. Bremers leadership, or lack of it ensured the failure of our occupation and the emergence of a Iraqi insurgency to a degree much larger than it might have been. There is so much more that went on there.