Did Bush Have A Direct Hand In The Worst Decision About Iraq?

Newsweek -- Bush himself, in fact, may have had a direct hand in one of the most disastrous decisions of the postwar period: the move to “de-Baathify” Iraq to the point of dismantling the entire Iraqi Army. U.S. officials now believe that former Iraqi Army officers are among the leaders of the insurgency. When Bremer arrived in Baghdad in mid-May, the insurgency was just getting started, and clots of former Iraqi troops were reappearing, asking to be remobilized. Bremer, who has been widely blamed for reversing the decision of his predecessor, Jay Garner, to hire such men and pay them, was warned he would cause chaos by demobilizing the Army instead. The CIA station chief told him, “That’s another 350,000 Iraqis you’re pissing off, and they’ve got guns.” According to one official who attended the meeting, Bremer replied: “I don’t have any choice ... Those are my instructions.” Then Bremer added: “The president told me that de-Baathification is more important.”