:: The Rational Radical Blog ::

Saturday, April 17, 2004

Countless Bad Decisions and 681 Deaths

We have a modest nomination for the first head to roll: Ambassador L. Paul (Jerry) Bremer, the American demi-proconsul of Baghdad, head of the Civilian Provisional Authority charged with installing Jeffersonian democracy and turning on the lights, water and sewers. Virtually every major decision he had made in Iraq has been wrong, poorly timed or just plain dumb.

Beginning with his decision to demobilize the real Iraq army and send them home with their AK-47 rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, no paychecks, no future and heaps of anger. Followed by his decision to purge everyone who ever held a Baath Party card from public life and public employment, thus abandoning many Sunnis to hopelessness and anger. Followed by his latest decision to close down Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr's newspaper and provoke him to anger - without any plan to deal with that anger when it spilled over into the streets and inflamed the Shiite community.

Any one of those flawed decisions ought to be a firing offense. Just as the Feb. 27, 2003, testimony of Wolfowitz to the effect that Iraq was going to be easy to occupy ought to have been a firing offense. Just as the testimony of the deputy chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, that the Pentagon did not do any planning for post-war Iraq because the act of planning might have contributed to starting the war ought to have gotten him fired.

Fire them all, and go on to Powell, Rice and Bush.

Jack Clark 4:42 PM [+]   
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