Who Disbanded the Iraqi Army?
It’s strangely appropriate that, just as the debate gets under way over whether the Iraq war’s next phase will be its last, another scuffle has broken out over how the U.S. occupation went so badly from the outset. The dispute concerns what many regard as the Bush administration’s single biggest mistake in the first few months after Saddam Hussein’s ouster—the order, in May 2003, to disband the Iraqi army. It was a move that put 250,000 young Iraqi men out of a job, out on the streets, angry, and armed—and all but guaranteed the violent chaos to come. In Robert Draper’s new book, Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush (which was excerpted in Slate), Bush blamed L. Paul Bremer, who was head of the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority during the occupation’s first year, for the decision. “The policy had been to keep the [Iraqi] army intact; didn’t happen,” Bush told Draper. Asked how he had reacted to Bremer’s reversal, Bush replied, “Yeah, I can’t remember. I’m sure I said,
