[NYTr] Bush knew all about Bremer plan to dissolve Iraqi 'military, intelligence structures'

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

The International Herald Tribune - Sep 4, 2007
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/09/04/america/bremer.php?WT.mc_id=rssafrica


Bremer told Bush of plan to dissolve Iraqi 
'military and intelligence structures' 

By Edmund L. Andrews

WASHINGTON: A previously undisclosed exchange of letters shows that
President George W. Bush was told in advance by his top Iraq envoy in
May 2003 of a plan to "dissolve Saddam's military and intelligence
structures," a plan that the envoy, L. Paul Bremer, said referred to
dismantling the Iraqi Army.

Bremer provided the letters to The New York Times on Monday after
reading that Bush was quoted in a new book as saying that U.S. policy
had been "to keep the army intact" but that it "didn't happen."

The dismantling of the army in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion is
widely regarded as a mistake that stoked rebellion among hundreds of
thousands of former Iraqi soldiers and made it more difficult to reduce
sectarian bloodshed and attacks by insurgents.

In releasing the letters, Bremer said he wanted to refute the
suggestion in Bush's comment that Bremer had acted to disband the army
without the knowledge and concurrence of the White House.

"We must make it clear to everyone that we mean business: that Saddam
and the Baathists are finished," Bremer wrote in a letter to the
president on May 22, 2003.

After recounting U.S. efforts to remove members of Saddam's Baath Party
from civilian agencies, Bremer told Bush that he would "parallel this
step with an even more robust measure" to dismantle the Iraq military.

One day later, Bush wrote back a short thank-you letter. "Your
leadership is apparent," the president wrote. "You have quickly made a
positive and significant impact. You have my full support and
confidence." On the same day, Bremer, in Baghdad, had issued the order
disbanding the Iraqi military.

Bush did not mention the order to abolish the military, and the letters
do not show that he approved the order or even knew much about it.
Bremer referred only fleetingly to his plan midway through his
three-page letter and offered no details.

In an interview with Robert Draper, author of the book "Dead Certain,"
Bush sounded as if he had been taken aback by the decision, or at least
by the need to abandon the original plan to keep the army together.

"The policy had been to keep the army intact; didn't happen," Bush told
the interviewer. When Draper asked the president how he had reacted
when he learned that the policy was being reversed, Bush replied,
"Yeah, I can't remember; I'm sure I said, 'This is the policy, what
happened?' "

Bremer indicated he had been smoldering for months as other
administration officials had steadily distanced themselves from his
order. "This didn't just pop out of my head," he said by telephone
Monday, adding that he had sent a draft of the order to top Pentagon
officials and discussed it "several times" with Donald Rumsfeld, then
secretary of defense.

A White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because
the White House is not openly commenting on Draper's book, said Bush
indeed understood the order and was acknowledging in the interview with
Draper that the original plan had proved unworkable.

"The plan was to keep the Iraqi army intact, and that's accurate," the
official said. "But by the time Jerry Bremer announced the order, it
was fairly clear that the Iraqi Army could not be reconstituted, and
the president understood that. He was acknowledging that that was
something that did not go as planned."

But the letters, combined with Bush's comments, suggest confusion
within the administration about what quickly proved to be a decision
with explosive repercussions.

Indeed, Bremer's letter to Bush is striking in its almost nonchalant
reference to a major decision that a number of U.S. military officials
in Iraq strongly opposed. Some senior administration officials,
including the secretary of state at the time, Colin Powell, have since
reportedly said that they did not know about the decision ahead of time.

The reference from Bremer's note to Bush is limited to one sentence.
The letter devoted much more space to recounting what Bremer described
as "an almost universal expression of thanks" from the Iraqi people "to
the U.S. and to you in particular for freeing Iraq from Saddam's
tyranny." In his 2006 memoir, Bremer said he had briefed senior
officials in Washington on the plan, but he did not mention the
exchange of letters with Bush.

Michael R. Gordon contributed reporting.