Josh Marshall: Who Disbanded the Iraqi Army?

[babylonsister]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/052588.php

Who Disbanded the Iraqi Army?
09.07.07 -- 11:05PM
By Josh Marshall

Fred Kaplan raises an fascinating point in his new article about the disbanding of the Saddam-era Iraqi Army. We know Paul Bremer didn't come up with the idea. But who did? I'm not sure I realized this. But I guess we actually don't know. And with the near universal belief that it was the biggest blunder of the occupation, it does not seem likely that anyone will be coming forward any time soon.

Since the idea read so much from the pre-war AEI-Iraq Regime Change playbook, I think I'd just been assuming it had come out of the crew around Wolfowitz at the Pentagon. But Kaplan makes an admittedly circumstantial and speculative but in the end I think rather convincing argument that the idea came from Dick Cheney. And Cheney probably got the idea from Ahmed Chalabi -- one of the great charlatans and hucksters in the annals of American foreign policy history.

We're told that it's wrong to dwell too long on what's in the past when it comes to Iraq. And this is good advice in as much as the hard work of figuring out, conceptually and politically, how to end the nightmare in Iraq shouldn't be shunted aside for the comparative ease of cataloguing and knocking out of park all the lame-brained ideas and catastrophic screw ups going back to 2002.

That said, though, there's so much left to talk about. There is such a long list of misdeeds and crimes for which we have neither answers nor accountability. This is just one among many, though it is no doubt one of the most consequential.

[spanone]

1. bu$h* motto: the buck stops nowhere

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

2. "Success has a thousand fathers; failure is an orphan."

[theoldman]

3. Ultimately the responsibility rests with Bush who gave the

order on advice from his cronies. I think Bremmer gave the final order.

[Kagemusha]

4. The funny thing is this assertion Bush's decisions were often simply ignored

and Cheney and Rumsfeld did what they were going to do anyway.

Not that I think that Bush was bothered to decide something for himself in this particular case. But that's really weak and loose leadership and management.

[wtmusic]

5. But where do we go from here? IMO it's time we move on

let the criminals run free, and forget the mistakes of the past so we can repeat them 30 15 2 years from now.

[Double T]

6. The most famous WH adviser, I. Donna Remember.

[nuxvomica]

7. I think it was Cheney, too

If you recall Garner was replaced because he wasn't going along with the asset forfeiture plan and Cheney was likely the guy pushing to get hold of the oil fields, which were the main topic of discussion in his early 2001 energy task force. If Garner had been successful at bringing order back to the country by holding elections and reactiviting the army, he would have assured that the oil wealth would've remained in the hands of the Iraqi people. I think Cheney was the one most concerned about that eventuality.

[Peace Patriot]

8. Well, it's hard to choose between Cheney and Rumsfeld, as chief malefactor in the

Iraq War, but on this particular issue--as well as most other operational issues (read crimes)--I would pick Rumsfeld.

Remember his astonishing reaction to the looting of Baghdad?--to paraphrase: Freedom = the freedom to loot. His criminal plan for Iraq was chaos. On the surface, it seems just plain nuts to let looters trash the city. It also seems nuts to round up thousands of completely innocent people and torture them. How's that for winning "hearts and minds" and getting flowers strewn in your path? And it SEEMS nuts, as well, to disband the only force capable of keeping civil order--the Iraqi army. But these things were not nuts. They were A PLAN. And the plan was designed to terrorize and disable every potential group, leader or force that could speak for the people of Iraq, and legitimately represent them, and who could establish the means for self-determination and self-governance.

"Shock and awe" was not just a horrid military phrase. It was a POLITICAL and SOCIAL intention--and a very criminal one. Cheney, of course, wanted the Iraqis smashed to bits and a puppet government installed to hand over Iraqi oil rights to his corporate buds. But Rumsfeld devised the means and carried out the operation. Operation Chaos.

I think that Rumsfeld was the mastermind of many such crimes, that served Cheney's war profiteering and other criminal goals. And I think that may be why Rumsfeld is gone. Somebody got the goods on him. I don't think it was the election at all. Rumsfeld is gone WITH NO CHANGE IN IRAQ POLICY. I think it was insiders who got him--military or intelligence (or maybe FBI). And it was really, really bad--even worse than the deliberate smashing to pieces of a country. Maybe 9/11. I've always wondered about the NORAD standdown. I think it may be the thread that unravels that horrid tapestry. Rumsfeld drew all NORAD decision-making powers into his own hands, six months before 9/11, then went AWOL on 9/11 itself, during the critical hour, after the WTC was hit, when hijacked planes were making U-turns back to DC. Said he was "in a meeting," unaware.

Anyway, whatever it was, Rumsfeld is the one who is gone. Being on the operational end, rather than the political end, he would be the more vulnerable of the two, to being nabbed for major crime.

Another possibility (for why Rumsfeld is gone) is Plamegate--say, the real reason Plame and her ENTIRE NETWORK of covert agents/contacts, who were monitoring and stopping WMD proliferation, were outed, their lives put in danger, and all projects disabled; my guess, a Rumsfeld plan to PLANT nukes on Iraqi soil, after the invasion, as follow-up to the Niger/Iraq nuke forgeries; somebody in the network foiled that nefarious scheme; all got outed. David Kelly--the UK/UN weapons expert--may also have been a casualty (--found dead under highly suspicious circumstances for days after Plame was outed). The scheme was Rumsfeld's, operated out of his Office of Special Plans. Cheney was responsible for the political end--getting the Niger/Iraq nuke forgeries into Bush's SOU speech, "selling" the lie, and later, doing political damage control when the scheme was foiled. (Enter Patrick Fitzgerald--on the political damage control end of things. He got Libby, Cheney's chief aide.) Because this was a frontal attack on the CIA, and the CIA most likely knew what was behind it, the CIA went after Rumsfeld, nailed him and got him removed--leaving Cheney to "dangle in the wind" (still sputtering, to this day, "but, but, but...Saddam had WMDs"!).

The U.S. military was also VERY UNHAPPY with Rumsfeld, cuz they're getting blamed for Plan Chaos. Also, they oppose attacking Iran. Cheney/Rumsfeld was a one-two punch for that dastardly scheme. Exit Rumsfeld. Remember what was occurring AT THE SAME TIME. The British sailors were seized in Iranian waters. This was very likely Rumsfeld's "Gulf of Tonkin" incident--excuse for bombing Iran. But I think the U.S. military and the newly empowered Democrats like Pelosi didn't go along. In fact, I think that's where "impeachment is off the table" came from (--a deal: no attack on Iran, and get rid of Rumsfeld, and we won't impeach the principles, Bush and Cheney). (Pelosi then went to the Middle East, the same week as the British sailors' crisis, possibly to deliver the message to various heads of government--Syria, for instance--that there will be no attack on Iran.) (It's possible also that the Iranians themselves helped foil the attack, by realizing what Rumsfeld was up to, and giving the sailors back.)

I also think that Rumsfeld was the key player in torture for fun and profit. (You don't think they're torturing people to "keep us safe," do you?). And in Pentagon spying on the American people.

In short, Cheney is a dirty bastard, but tried to keep his hands clean. Rumsfeld was in the muck, up to his eyeballs in the details of enormous crimes. My conclusion: He ordered the disbanding of the Iraqi Army.

[applegrove]

9. That is a great question. I'm sure it will come out some day. What a horrible blunder.