The Iraqi Army Meme
One of the lefty memes that's made me shake my head in mute, tired dejection has been "We were wrong to disband the Iraqi military". The meme was in full, depraved glory last night on the Hewitt show, when a caller claimed that we could have used the Hussein's Republican Guard as a police force.
< Seinfeld on > Who are these people? < / Seinfeld off>
In a totalitarian dictatorship, the military doesn't just serve the dictator - it is trained to fear him. Totalitarian societies are usually created by pitting 2-3 forces against each other, to create a balance of terror that serves the ruler. In the USSR, the Communist Party (and its private army, the MOD, selected for loyalty) was balanced against the secret police (the KGB, which had its own private army) and the Army; when one of the legs got too powerful, the other two would team up and cut it down to size. Nazi Germany was similar; the Party (and its private army, the SS, selected for loyalty and aryan purity) and the Gestapo balanced the power of the Army.
So too in Iraq, where the Army - large and powerful at its peak - was regulated by the counterbalancing forces of the Mukhabarat, or secret police, and the Ba'ath Party (with its private army, the Republican Guard, selected for - you guessed it - its loyalty). The Army isn't like a Western army; it has spent its entire existence being co-opted into compliance with a dictator; any sign of initiative, or the type of military or leadership skills that might lead to the sort of popularity that could lead eventually to the ability to carry out a coup, was quickly met with censure, shuffling to another part of the military, or (often) a list of trumped-up crimes leading to imprisonment or death.
And the Republican Guard? They were like the SS; chosen for their loyalty to the leader, equipped on a lavish scale that the regular Army could only envy. They are among the whose loyalty to Hussein and the Ba'ath party has led many of them to continue the war, long after the war itself was lost.
The parallels are clear; after World War II, the German military was beaten up terribly, but had maintained its unit cohesion; the Wehrmacht and SS could have been used to help maintain order...
...but the Allies correctly realized that within both of those institutions were the virus of the ideas that they'd spent so much blood and treasure defeating. When the new German state was allowed to start another military in the fifties, many of its men had served in the Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe and
Jack Kelly at Irish Pennants writes about the nascent Iraqi Army - the new one:
Creating good infantry units isn't easy, but it is the easiest task in building up the Iraqi military. What's harder is building up fire support and logistics units. Expect that by January Iraqi units will be doing the lion's share of the infantry work, with the U.S. providing artillery and air support, logistical help, and advice, as well as providing emergency forces to come to the aid of Iraqi units which get in over their heads.
The Iraqi army is being created chiefly to deal with an internal threat, and it will be a year, more likely two, before it can handle that task on its own. It will take much longer before the Iraqi military can also deal with an external threat posed by Syria or (especially) Iran. A significant American presence will be required for 4-5 years at least before Iraqis can be expected to assume that responsibility.
If you've never tried to build a military from scratch - it's harder than you think. Read some history - even American history. The first Continental Army was a disaster; in the Civil War, the Spanish-American War and both World Wars, the traditional American pattern of building a huge army from scratch on the fly led to immense disasters (Bull Run, the whole Cuban and Philippines campaigns, Kasserine Pass) as the US learned how to fight.
And that was with an army that fought for a contiguous, cohesive government with a stable democracy. Now, take that dynamic and apply it to a country that is literally rebuilding itself from scratch.
Give the Iraqis time. Seriously; they need it. It's a matter of life and death.
Posted by Mitch at
June 23, 2005 12:08 PM
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I'm pretty sure that Bremer reversed this decision a month later (right after he said disbanding them was the right thing to do). How is this a "lefty" meme? Alawi said it was a mistake right after Bremer reversed his decision and began to hire former Iraqi army soldiers.
Worst of all, Bremer didn't consult with the Pentagon on this decision.
Is Tony Blair one of those lefties?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200409/s1207413.htm
He later toned it down to this:
Well, I've said before that I think, in retrospect ... the speed of de-Ba'athification and disbanding of forces was too great
Posted by: cleversponge at June 23, 2005 12:06 PMAt the beginning, there was no intact Iraqi military structure to preserve. They'd already changed into to their civilian clothes and disappeared into the crowd. They weren't too interested in helping America continue taking away the old perks of power, and perks of brutality.
I think the Coalition did it about right, more by chance than by design. After you have the recruitment process in place, and a core of new recruits, then you can start bringing in the non-criminal remnants of Saddam's military--those that are still interested, case by case.
Posted by: RBMN at June 23, 2005 01:14 PMcleversponge-
Posted by: Terry at June 23, 2005 01:22 PMTony Blaire is a lefty, just not "one of those lefties" :)
There were very good reasons for disbanding the Iraqi army. It was poorly equipped, trained, and made up largely of conscripts with poor moral. It's officers were promoted on the basis of their loyalty to the Baathist regime. Its leadership was ethnically arab in a multi-ethnic country. The Republican Guard shared the weaknesses of regular units, except with regard to the quality of equipment.
The mistake (and yes, I'll call it that) was in removing the Iraqi troops and low level officers from coalition control. I doubt we could have ever made them an effective counter force to the insurgency, but at least we could have kept our eye on them.
No, I know Blair isn't exactly conservative. The point was more that this is a pretty mainstream critique of the war in Iraq...hardly liberal. Hell, one of the few plans that the Bush administration had for the post-war was to hire a bunch of Iraqi soldiers...Bremer nixed it.
Posted by: cleversponge at June 23, 2005 01:50 PM