“The Iraqi Army of the future cannot be an extension of the present army, which has been made into a tool of dictatorship.” — Report by the Department of State’s Future of Iraq Project, May 2002
It has become conventional wisdom that the decision to disband Saddam Hussein’s army was a mistake, was contrary to American prewar planning and was a decision I made on my own. In fact the policy was carefully considered by top civilian and military members of the American government. And it was the right decision.
By the time Baghdad fell on April 9, 2003, the Iraqi Army had simply dissolved. On April 17 Gen. John Abizaid, the deputy commander of the Army’s Central Command, reported in a video briefing to officials in Washington that “there are no organized Iraqi military units left.” The disappearance of Saddam Hussein’s old army rendered irrelevant any prewar plans to use that army. So the question was whether the Coalition Provisional Authority should try to recall it or to build a new one open to both vetted members of the old army and new recruits. General Abizaid favored the second approach.
In the weeks after General Abizaid’s recommendation, the coalition’s national security adviser, Walter Slocombe, discussed options with top officials in the Pentagon, including Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. They recognized that to recall the former army was a practical impossibility because postwar looting had destroyed all the bases.
Moreover, the largely Shiite draftees of the army were not going to respond to a recall plea from their former commanders, who were primarily Sunnis. It was also agreed that recalling the army would be a political disaster because to the vast majority of Iraqis it was a symbol of the old Baathist-led Sunni ascendancy.
On May 8, 2003, before I left for Iraq, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld gave me a memo titled “Principles for Iraq-Policy Guidelines” that specified that the coalition “will actively oppose Saddam Hussein’s old enforcers — the Baath Party, Fedayeen Saddam, etc.” and that “we will make clear that the coalition will eliminate the remnants of Saddam’s regime.” The next day Mr. Rumsfeld told me that he had sent the “Principles” paper to the national security adviser and the secretary of state.
Meanwhile, Walter Slocombe’s consultations with Americans officials in Washington and Baghdad showed that they understood that the only viable course was to build a new, professional force open to screened members of the old army. Mr. Slocombe drafted an order to accomplish these objectives. I sent a preliminary draft of this order to the secretary of defense on May 9. The next day I sent the draft to the Defense Department’s general counsel, William J. Haynes, as well as to Mr. Wolfowitz; the under secretary for policy, Douglas Feith; the head of Central Command, Gen. Tommy Franks; and to the coalition’s top civil administrator at the time, Jay Garner, asking for comments.
On May 13, en route to Baghdad, Mr. Slocombe briefed senior British officials in London who told him they recognized that “the demobilization of the Iraqi military is a fait accompli.” His report added that “if some U.K. officers or officials think that we should try to rebuild or reassemble the old R.A. (Republican Army), they did not give any hint of it in our meetings, and in fact agreed with the need for vigorous de-Baathification, especially in the security sector.”
Over the following week, Mr. Slocombe continued discussions about the planned order with top Pentagon officials, including Mr. Feith. During that same period, Lt. Gen. David McKiernan, the field commander of the coalition forces in Iraq, received and cleared the draft order. I briefed Secretary Rumsfeld on the issue several times, and forwarded a final draft of the proposed order for his approval on May 19.
Walter Slocombe subsequently received detailed comments on the draft order incorporating the views of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Office of the Secretary of Defense, making clear that the top civilian and military staff in the Pentagon, as well as the commanders in the field, had reviewed the proposal. Another coalition adviser, Dan Senor, spent the night of May 22 coordinating the text of the announcement with Mr. Rumsfeld’s close adviser Lawrence Di Rita. Apart from minor edits to the order, none of the military or civilian officials raised objections to the proposal to create a new Iraqi army or to formally dissolve Saddam Hussein’s security apparatus.
On May 22, I sent to President Bush, through Secretary Rumsfeld, my first report since arriving in Iraq. I reviewed our activities since arrival, including our de-Baathification policy. I then alerted the president that “I will parallel this step with an even more robust measure dissolving Saddam’s military and intelligence structures.” The same day, I briefed the president on the plan via secure video. The president sent me a note on May 23 in which he thanked me for my report and noted that “you have my full support and confidence.”
The decision not to recall Saddam Hussein’s army was thoroughly considered by top officials in the American government. At the time, this decision was not controversial. When Mr. Slocombe held a press conference in Baghdad on May 23 to explain the decision, only two reporters showed up — neither of them Americans. The first I heard of doubts about the decision was in the fall of 2003 after the insurgency had picked up speed.
Moreover, we were right to build a new Iraqi Army. Despite all the difficulties encountered, Iraq’s new professional soldiers are the country’s most effective and trusted security force. By contrast, the Baathist-era police force, which we did recall to duty, has proven unreliable and is mistrusted by the very Iraqi people it is supposed to protect.
By L. Paul Bremer III, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq from 2003 to 2004.