L. Paul Bremer messed up Iraq

"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"..." First of all, you have not proven that the Iraqi soldiers' loyalty to their religious group is of greater importance to them than their salary given them by the army. In fact, it seems quite the opposite. The National Army (even under Saddam) was one of the few institutions in the country that served as a unifying, national entity. We can see this by looking at the history of Iraq, even during its worst years under Saddam. For example, during the Iran-Iraq War (http://en.wikipedia.org...), the Iraqi military, run by the oppressive Ba'ath regime of Saddam Hussein, fought in a bloody and vicious war against Iran, a newly found nation that was born of a Shi'ite Revolution (http://en.wikipedia.org...). However, Saddam's Army was mostly comprised of Shi'ite troops, hundreds of thousands of whom died heroically for their country. Owing their allegiance not to Saddam, but to their country and the defense of their homeland, Sunnis and Shi'ites fought side by side against a common enemy, even a Shi'ite one. This shows how nationalism can transcend the sectarian divisions you claimed were unshakeable. When these men were left unemployed and seemingly betrayed by the very institution they had dedicated their lives to (http://en.wikipedia.org...), regardless of who was in power, they felt abandoned by the state, and this hopelessness turned to frustration at the inefficiency and aloofness of the American coalition to their problems. Not surprisingly, many of them took to the streets of Baghdad in protest, and even with the promise of pension benefits and severance payments (which weren't enough anyway) by the CPA, they vowed destruction against the new state of Iraq and American occupation. "We will all become suicide bombers," vowed one disenfranchised protester. (1) Also, even if they were loyal to their religious group, why does that have to be mutually exclusive with the new state? Almost all Iraqis were considerably pleased with the disposition of Saddam Hussein, and tribes were given more rights, if anything, under the new regime. This has been shown with the Sunni Awakening Groups, or "Sons of Iraq" initiative, in which Sunni ex-insurgents, while retaining their local tribal identity, are paid by the U.S. Army to fight off local rebels and criminals. This initiative has proved amazingly successful in reducing the violence in Iraq and dissolving the Sunni insurgents. However, if Bremer hadn't dissolved the army, the Sons of Iraq wouldn't ever had to be done and Iraqis would have been spared the years of sectarian bloodshed that tore apart the country. The only justified clause in my opinion of "Dissolution of Entities" was the section pertaining to the disbandment of the Fedayeen Saddam and other unconventional paramilitary groups, which were stigmatic reminders of the old regime and were unconditionally loyal to the Ba'ath Party. This group would definitely have been victim to infiltration by rogue anti-State elements. "From another perspective, disbanding the old Iraqi military reduces the animosity of Shi'ite and Kurdish groups..." The majority of the Iraqi Army was Shi'ite; as I said before, this institution was one of the few that could unify the Iraqi people because it had no religious or sectarian agendas, and it provided salaries and a sense of national unity for the people, separate from Saddam's Ba'athist oppression. If the army had been kept, Sunnis and Shi'ites could have fought side by side to extinguish the common enemy: the foreign jihadists who now provide leadership to terrorists groups in Iraq like Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia. When the army was disbanded, these antagonized people, Sunnis and Shi'ite alike, had no government support to turn to, and thus were more inclined to turn to their local mosques and sectarian affiliations for political and economic support. Sunni tribesman, who could once be united with Shi'ites through the National Army, now united to fight against the new occupation and their Shi'ite adversaries. This was not helped by the fact that L. Paul Bremer, in creating the new Iraqi Army, (or NIA), catered specifically to sectarian allegiances, and most of the new army (which is plagued today by Shia death squads and sectarian bias) had Shi'ite commanders. Bremer himself promised Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of the Shi'ite political group SCIRI, that the commander of the first battalion in the new army would be a Shi'ite (2). Because of Bremer's biased policies in reintegrating the new Army, even more sectarian tension was generated and the Sunnis felt abandoned by the occupation and threatened by the new Shi'ite-dominated army. As for CPA Order #1, or DeBa'athification, this was a very uninformed and dangerous decision made by Bremer. It banned the top four tiers of the ruling Ba'ath Party from their positions and barred them from future employment in the public sector. This was just as disastrous as CPA Order #2, because it stripped society of its experience professionals, such as hospital and university managers and others who would have been integral in creating a new state. Anyway, many of the Ba'ath Party members, even senior ones, had only joined out of fear or coercion by the Ba'ath Party, and junior party members, of whom there were thousands, were also inappropriately included in DeBa'athification. Also, Bremer incorrectly assumed in CPA Order #1 that all members in the armed forces with the rank of Colonel or above were members of the Ba'ath Party, and thus were also disenfranchised and marginalized by this CPA order. In fact, even top commanders in the army didn't belong to the Party, and most were junior members at most. This policy left thousands permanently unemployed and disenfranchised, essentially exiled from society, and thus understandably they came to form the part of the insurgency known as the FREs, or Former Regime Elements. Teaming up with the angry Sunnis kicked out of the army, these two groups came to form the Sunni insurgency that was to devastate Iraq with sectarian killings and suicide bombings for years to come. To turn to Bremer's other policies, such as a total restructuring of Iraqi economy, these were also very detrimental. By subsidizing and selling off many major companies to the private sector, Bremer inadvertently crippled the Iraqi economy. Many state-owned industries that could have been used to unify the Iraqi people and employ thousands were sold to foreign investors and private corporations pursuant of Bremer's personal ideology of "free market" economics. Obviously, Iraq, only months after invasion, was not prepared for this kind of severe change in society, and would have been better suited to the kind of "New Deal" programs that FDR created in the 1930s, which involved large scale public works projects. These kinds of initiatives would not only help physically reconstruct Iraqi infrastructure, but also unite the Iraqi people and provide employment to thousands of Iraqis who would have otherwise joined the insurgency as a means of retaining their pride and their means of living. In conclusion, as I have run out of characters, these arguments show how L. Paul Bremer III's role as administrator of Iraq basically created the Sunni insurgency and fueled the sectarian bloodshed that was to come in 2005-2007. He also damaged the Iraqi economy and created a feeling of antagonism and distrust towards the new Iraqi state and the American occupation. 1) Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq by Thomas Ricks 2) My Year in Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future o