Replies

Good post about your experience in Iraq. The 3rd ID sounds like a clueless American urban police force, more concerned about guns held by civilians endangering their officers than with the public getting victimized by criminals. Unfortunately, in the case of Iraq, the result is not just a crime wave in bad neighborhoods but the spurring of an insurgency.

As the article points out, the argument over "disbanding" the Iraqi Army is misconceived because they were not a serviceable military force. But that does not close the issue. Rather than being left to get into mischief, the Iraqi Army could have been paid by us and kept on base under military discipline. In effect, they would have been POWs on salary as we interrogated and demobilized them. Most of them would have been grateful for a paycheck.

As they were assessed, we could have cherry picked for new Army recruits, police, militia, interpreters, and so on, with the rest noted for ID and Intel purposes before they were discharged. On the whole, we would have been better served to have paid the remnants of the Iraqi Army to march in formation for a year, take democracy classes, and talk to us than to have them become supporters for the insurgency.

As for the Sunni vs. Shia conflict, carefully vetted Sunni Iraqi Army veterans would be useful head crackers in Sunni areas at least, which is where most of the problem is. Indeed, that is essentially what we are doing now, a year late and with mixed success after having lost the moment.