Taking Reponsibility, Looking Ahead in Iraq

Two articles on Iraq recently published online are worth a close read. One looks back to one of the worst errors the United States made in the early days of the war, the disbanding of the Iraqi army, thus dumping 250,000 men onto the streets, angry, armed, and jobless. Fred Kaplan, writing for Slate, discusses who was probably responsible for that disastrous decision. President Bush says it wasn't his order but L. Paul Bremer's decision. Paul Bremer has publicly replied that he received the order from Donald Rumsfeld and that President Bush commended the order. But Kaplan shows how all the principal parties, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had decided to disband only the elite Republican Guards, not the ordinary enlisted men in the Iraqi army. So where do you think the finger points for what most believe was the worst decision in the early months of the Iraq war, a decision that led to the chaos and violence? Read Kaplan's piece for one analysis.

The second article is by George Packer, in The New Yorker. Packer, a journalist who supported President Bush's decision to invade Iraq but who quickly became disenchanted with the war because of its poor execution, has written extensively on the war in Iraq and has been to Iraq several times. (I highly recommend his book The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq, as well as Ron Suskind's The One Percent Doctine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of its Enemies Since 9/11 and Thomas Ricks' Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq.) Packer's recent article, "Planning for Defeat", looks ahead to the decisions which will have to be made in the next few months. He rightly points out that these decisions are not ones relegated to one administration or one party. We are all responsible, and our decisions will determine America's standing in the world.