How We Got Here (4/4/07)

I started this in March, and to follow up, here's more from Bob Woodward’s “State Of Denial,” the third book in his "Bush At War" series.

And to make it easier to go back and read prior posts related to Woodward's book, I set up an index page of sorts here.

As noted in Woodward’s book and elsewhere, Paul Bremer made three horrendous mistakes as soon as he took over as Director of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance in Iraq: implementing the broad de-baathification policy, rejecting Jay Garner’s Iraqi council, including members Ayad Allawi and Ibrahim al-Jafari (who eventually ended up on the council anyway despite Bremer), and disbanding the military. This excerpt deals with the last of those screwups.

(pp. 206-207)

In the days after the order disbanding the military, vehicles traveling the road between Baghdad and the airport started coming under attack more regularly. Crowds began to gather to protest the order, although reports differed greatly as to how many people turned out each time. On May 19 (2003), about 500 people demonstrated outside the Coalition Provisional Authority’s gates. A Week later, on May 26, a larger crowd gathered to demonstrate. Some Arab media reports that were later translated and given to Bremer’s team said there were as many as 5,000 protesters.

“We demand the formulation of a government as soon as possible, the restoration of security, rehabilitation of public institutions, and disbursement of the salaries of all military personnel,” said one of the leaders of the protest, an Iraqi major general named Sahib al-Musawi. His speech was carried over the Arabic-language television network Al Jazeera, and later translated for the CPA. “If our demands are not met, next Monday will mark the start of estrangement between the Iraqi army and people on one hand and the occupiers on the other.”

Paul Hughes now had to deal with the former Iraqi officers who wanted their soldiers to be given the $20 emergency payments, but who were now shut out under the Bremer order. Hughes stalled for awhile but finally went to see the officers.

“Colonel Paul, what happened?” asked Mirjan Dhiya, their English-speaking spokesman.

“I don’t know,” Hughes said. “I can’t tell you what happened. I’m as shocked as you are.”

“Colonel Paul, we have men who have families. They have no food. They are running out. We need to do something.”

Hughes finally got Slocombe’s chief of staff to meet with the former Iraqi military representative. There was still a possibility that they might get the $20 each, but things were moving very slowly.

Garner was out at Baghdad International Airport to meet with a visiting congressional delegation on May 26. He drove back on the BIAP highway in his unarmored Chevy Suburban to the so-called palace where his team had been working, for a little going-away party in his honor. It was a bit of a joke among some of the staffers whether Bremer would show up, but he was there, and was gracious.

(Note: Next time, I’ll have to get into an exchange between Garner and Bremer that was typical of their difficult relationship, for which Bremer was primarily to blame as far as I'm concerned.)

That same day, three American cavalry scouts whose job was to escort or go ahead of convoys of supply trucks were also on the BIAP highway, riding in the first of a team of two armored Humvees. They drove over what looked like a backpack in the middle of the road.

The backpack exploded, tearing into their Humvee and throwing one of the soldiers from the vehicle. Ammunition started to cook off, causing more explosions.

The soldiers in the second Humvee slammed on the brakes and manned their machine gun, looking frantically for the enemy. One soldier got out and ran quickly to the fallen man, Jeremiah D. Smith, a 25-year-old Army private from Missouri, one of the first American soldiers confirmed to have been killed by hostile fire in Iraq for weeks.

Paul Hughes was at the palace at Garner’s farewell party. He heard a report: “We just lost two Humvees on the BIAP highway.”

“I was pissed,” Hughes later recalled. He presumed Iraqi soldiers were behind the attack, and was equally sure that the U.S. had missed its best opportunity to keep the Iraqi army under control by working with the Iraqi generals and colonels. “I had them by their balls. They would have stood on their head in the Tigris River for me as long as we were dealing fairly with each other. It was just so tragic, so needless.”

The next day, one of the U.S. intelligence agents at the palace had a stark, matter-of-fact assessment. “These guys all have munitions in their garages,” He said. “They’re pissed off. This is the beginning.”

And of course, when Bremer discusses this now, he shifts the blame in typical Bushco fashion, noting that the de-Baathification order came either directly from the White House or could even have originated from Douglas Feith (please).

One day, college classes in political science and military history will study all the ways that we “fracked” up the Iraq war, and Paul Bremer will figure prominently in those studies for the three unbelievable mistakes he committed as soon as he took over in Iraq.