That’s the question amba poses after reading about the myriad of mistakes the administration and Pentagon officials made when trying to rebuild the Irai police force.
Even before the 2003 invasion, General Jay Garner and Justice and State Department specialists had explicitly warned the administration that the rotten Saddam-era police force was likely to collapse and that 5,000 to 6,000 American and foreign advisers would be needed to train and monitor a new force. Bush and Rumsfeld blew them off, saying that we didn’t want to be viewed as heavy-handed occupiers and that taking over too much of what the Iraqis should be doing for themselves could create “a culture of dependence.� Yet the operations in Kosovo and Bosnia had taught two key lessons: “Law and order first,� and “blanketing local police stations with foreign trainers [ . . . ] helped deter brutality, corruption, and infiltration by militias.� Because this advice was ignored, by the time General Garner got to Baghdad, 16 out of 23 major government ministries — and the National Museum — were “stripped shells.�
And althought this won’t come as much of a shock, that’s not even the worst part.
Needless to say, as a supporter of the war, amba is super pissed at how badly the arrogance and ignorance screwed this one up.