[NYTr] Brits 'backed US decision to disband Iraqi army'

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

[Not surprising. The Brits always want to return to the thrilling days
of yesteryear -- the Blitz, the plucky Londoners, the Nazi fiends, etc.]


The Independent - Sep 7, 2007
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article2938970.ece

Britain 'backed US decision to disband Iraqi army'

By Leonard Doyle in Washington and Kim Sengupta in Basra

The British Government and military high command fully supported the
controversial US policy of disbanding Saddam Hussein's armed forces
after the 2003 invasion, according to Washington's former proconsul in
Baghdad, Paul Bremer.

Stung by remarks from President George Bush that he alone had been
responsible for one of the most disastrous mistakes of the war while
running the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), Mr Bremer went to
some lengths to set the record straight yesterday and provided
previously unknown details of British support for the US policy.

British military officers were also enthusiastic supporters of the
policy of de-Baathification – or sacking members of Saddam's Baath
party from the security services, according to Mr Bremer. The policy,
which he still defends, has been blamed for creating a security vacuum
which enabled a Sunni as well as an al-Qa'ida insurgency to take hold.
In a searing opinion article in yesterday's New York Times, Mr Bremer
tried to defend himself from becoming the scapegoat for the
administration's failures in Iraq.

He described a visit to London by the CPA's national security adviser,
Walter Slocombe. "On 13 May, en route to Baghdad, Mr Slocombe briefed
senior British officials in London who told him they recognised that
the demobilisation of the Iraqi military is a fait accompli," Mr Bremer
wrote. He said Mr Slocombe's report added that "if some UK officers or
officials think that we should try to rebuild or reassemble the old RA
[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."

His words flatly contradict General Sir Mike Jackson's recent
autobiography in which he lays the blame for the sectarian bloodbath in
Iraq at the door of the US.

"We should have kept the Iraqi security services in being and put them
under the command of the coalition," wrote General Jackson. "To what
extent the Government communicated our concerns to the Americans I have
no idea."

Mr Bremer's reflections are also at odds with Major- General Tim Cross,
the most senior British officer involved in the post-war planning. He
claims to have raised concerns about the possibility of Iraq falling
into chaos but says they were dismissed by the former US defence
secretary Donald Rumsfeld. "Right from the very beginning we were all
very concerned about the lack of detail that had gone into the post-war
plan and there is no doubt that Rumsfeld was at the heart of that
process," General Cross said.

But Mr Bremer makes clear that far from opposing the policy, British
officials, including the military high command, were enthusiastic
backers.

There were, he says, "no organised Iraqi military units left" after the
invasion and the disappearance of Saddam's old army rendered irrelevant
any pre-war plans to use that army.

At that point General John Abizaid, the deputy commander of the US
Army's Central Command, decided to build a new army open to both vetted
members of the old army and new recruits. In mid-May 2003, Mr Slocombe
was sent from Iraq to secure Washington's backing as well as that of
unnamed senior British officials and military officers.

Mr Bremer argues that the decision not to recall Saddam's army was
thoroughly debated at the highest echelons of government – in the US
and the UK.

He says the first doubts he heard about the policy came towards the end
of 2003 as the insurgency began to strike hard.

Defiant to the end, he says: "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."

Senior British officers dealing with Iraq in the aftermath of the war
described Mr Bremer's assertions yesterday as "disingenuous and
manipulation of what happened".

The American General Jay Garner and his British number two, General
Cross, were forced into leaving their posts, paving the way for Mr
Bremer, they said, precisely because they refused to carry out a
wholesale de-Baathification process. At the same time efforts by
Generals Garner and Cross to organise civic government was, it is
claimed, blocked by elements in the White House.

One senior officer, who was in Baghdad at the time, and had extensive
involvement in the matter, said "This is pretty disingenuous. Of course
there was broad agreement that the most extreme and senior elements of
the Baath party should be got rid of. But what Dick Cheney and Donald
Rumsfeld's people wanted, egged on by some Shia politicians, was a form
of blanket culling of Baath party people.

"We knew this was a grave mistake and we repeatedly told the Americans
that valuable time was being lost in reconstruction and building a
civic society while they pursued this line. But they had their
political agenda, Bremer came in and the rest is history. Bremer now
appears to be trying to manipulate what actually what happened."