L. Paul Bremer messed up Iraq

This is not an "all-or-nothing" proposition; no one can argue that Bremer either completely blameless, *or* have total blame, to the chaos in Iraq. What both of us agree is that there will always be conflict in Iraq; the point of contention here is the extent of the blame that should be attributed to Bremer. I will prove that, by and large, there is little that Bremer could do to stop the violence, and his decisions reduced the chaos in Iraq, not made it worse. Therefore, it is unfair to say that " L. Paul Bremer messed up Iraq". On your part, you need to show that while violence is unavoidable, Bremer's decisions made it worse. You need to show the correlation between his actions and the events in Iraq, and also theorize how if he didn't make a particular decision, something different and better would happen. Since this debate ends in three rounds and we're already at round two, I shall start the debate. I will, for my part, discuss the most controversial decisions that Bremer made - disbanding the Iraqi military and complete dismantlement of the Iraqi civil service. Of course, if my opponent wants to propose more he can do so during his turn. Critics charge that by disbanding the Iraqi army, we fuel the insurgency by creating a pool of jobless, armed men, and therefore these people will join the Sunni insurgency. If an average Iraqi grunt is not paid his salary by the military, the argument goes, he will join the insurgency who will (or at least gives him an opportunity to plunder). This argument, of course, is false. Even if we retain the Iraqi soldiers within the military, it will not guarantee that he will not join the insurgency, for the simple reason that for an Iraqi, loyalty to their religious group (Sunni, in this instance) is greater than material gain provided by (in their eyes) the "invaders". So even if the military was not disbanded, these Sunni troops will still support the Sunni insurgency. In fact, we will make the insurgency stronger because of the presence of "moles" - insurgents who pretend to pledge allegiance to the US authorities, and yet actively try to undermine it from within. From another perspective, disbanding the old Iraqi military reduces the animosity of Shi'ite and Kurdish groups, because these are the people that have been suppressing them during Saddam's days. It will be extremely hard to for the US to gain co-operation with the Shi'ite and Kurds if the US are seen to be working with the very same groups that have been killing and oppressing them back when Saddam was in power. Disbanding the apparatus of oppression, therefore, is the right decision, and any so-called chaos from doing so is mitigated by the fact that it does more good than harm by earning us the good will of the majority of Iraqis. Therefore, to *not* disband the old Iraqi army will contribute to the insurgency even more, since the troops within have no loyalty to the new administration, and to make things even worse the US will suffer a negative public perception effect by being seen to be working with instruments of Saddam's oppression. The same principle of "jobless Sunnis joining the insurgency" is used to criticize Bremer's decision to dismantle the Iraqi civil service during the process of de-Ba'athification, and the same logic that I use to refute it, as seen above, applies. It is better to rebuild the civil service from scratch, by screening and excluding known hostile elements, than co-opting a viper's nest of potential moles. And it will be easier for Shi'ites and Kurds to accept the legitimacy of a civil servants picked by the US, rather than the one constructed by Saddam. In conclusion, it can clearly be seen that the decisions made by Bremer was correct, and the worsening conditions in Iraq cannot be blamed on him.