Decision ‘08

Playing The Hindsight Game

On June 18, 2003, Jay Garner went to see Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to report on his brief tenure in Iraq as head of the postwar planning office. Throughout the invasion and the early days of the war, Garner, a retired Army lieutenant general, had struggled just to get his team into Iraq. Two days after he arrived, Rumsfeld called to tell him that L. Paul “Jerry” Bremer, a 61-year-old terrorism expert and protege of Henry A. Kissinger, would be coming over as the presidential envoy, effectively replacing Garner.

“We’ve made three tragic decisions,” Garner told Rumsfeld at their meeting.

“Really?” Rumsfeld said.

“Three terrible mistakes,” Garner said.

He cited the first two orders Bremer signed when he arrived, the first banning as many as 50,000 members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party from government jobs and the second disbanding the Iraqi military. Now there were hundreds of thousands of disorganized, unemployed, armed Iraqis running around.

Third, Garner said, Bremer had summarily dismissed an interim Iraqi leadership group that had been eager to help the United States administer the country in the short term. “Jerry Bremer can’t be the face of the government to the Iraqi people. You’ve got to have an Iraqi face for the Iraqi people,” he said.

Garner made his final point: “There’s still time to rectify this. There’s still time to turn it around.”

Rumsfeld looked at Garner for a moment with his take-no-prisoners gaze. “Well,” he said, “I don’t think there is anything we can do, because we are where we are.”

He thinks I’ve lost it, Garner thought. He thinks I’m absolutely wrong. Garner didn’t want it to sound like sour grapes, but facts were facts. “They’re all reversible,” Garner said again.

“We’re not going to go back,” Rumsfeld said emphatically.

I’ve called for Rumsfeld’s resignation before; it was not a popular stance with my readers. Nevertheless (and while fully acknowledging that (a) the Woodward book is not the final word, (b) the White House is disputing much of this (naturally), and (c) he has some good accomplishments to go with his big failures), I feel it was the correct one…

6 Responses to “Playing The Hindsight Game”

1 mtl Says:
September 30th, 2006 at 8:19 pm
The implication is that Garner believed rumsfeld held all control, that he could dismiss Bremer or make him chnaeg his plan.

What if the reports of conflicts between condi and rummy were about what Bremer was doing?

It was the right decision. Utilizing an organized military at that time could set it up as a power broker, exceeding their true representation in the population. Giving them access to vehicles and authority at the time, would have resulted in massive looting at first, and provided a basis for organized crime later.
2 Mark Says:
September 30th, 2006 at 8:27 pm
Well, but mtl, there was massive looting…
3 Andy Says:
September 30th, 2006 at 11:36 pm
My main point would be this. Have we anything in history where the occupiers were supposed to not act like occupiers to learn from? There are textbook examples for going in and maintaining the legacy infrastruture and there are examples where they were dismantled and stripped of power. Handling Iraq like we did is territory where no man has ever gone before. Mistakes are understandable and even tolerable, provided we learn from them. That said, I’ll give Rummy and Condi a pass, however, Bremer & State Dept really messed it up, as far as I can see.
4 mtl Says:
October 1st, 2006 at 1:46 am
massive looting?

I thought the reports of it were greatly exagerated.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/04/13/iraq/main549143.shtml

“U.S. Troops Say Reports Of Looting Greatly Exaggerated”

There are a few problems with the looting story. The museums knew they were going to be experiencing a war passing by…most of the quality stuff was locked up. No one has made a list describing what has actually been stolen. Somebody robs the lourve, and we would definitely have an inventory. My personal opinion in the matter is that not one drop of us blood should be spent protecting an inanimate object duirng a war. I don’t care if it was the guttenberg bible, meaningless in war.
5 mtl Says:
October 1st, 2006 at 2:02 am
Let me suggest an alternative reality:
Pretend-

There is no insurgency.

As a result is the country more/less unifed?
Is the government more compelled to act in the interest of both their own and public safety, or does the forming of a govenment proceed even slower?
Does sectarian violence come sooner, or not at all?
Lacking a governmental focus on national security from the danger of the insurgency, and with the only problem of sectarian violence, does it cause more pressure on the country to split?

The rise in sectaran violence suggests a shift that was inevitable. It does suggest that, at least in the eyes of the current fighters, the insurgency is over and new plans have come, the inevitable ones. But…

Is it possible that the delay in the sectarian violence, due to the insurgency, has bought the Iraqi govt enough time to have a chance to succeed? If we had been dealing with sectarian conflict, immediately after the incasion, we would never have pulled off our current success.
6 mtl Says:
October 1st, 2006 at 2:15 am
another sign that the insurgency is pretty much done…
the declining wish for US forces to remain.

It is logical if you have an anti-us sentiment, but you are forced to weigh it against the threat of the terrorists. The safer you believe you are, the less you will be likely to wish the troops remain.

The terrorists have provided sufficient cover to keep anti-US sentiment from bubbling over. They made us look good.