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| Iraq-Jordan | |
| Garner deserved lead role in Iraq | |
| 2004-05-03 | |
| Jay Garner’s unceremonious departure from Iraq last year left an impression that he wasn’t up to the job of overseeing the greatest nation-building experiment in history. The retired general not only understood the country and the military, he knew firsthand about guerrilla wars and the problems of winning the support of occupied people. For months, he had prepared to reconstruct Iraq but was clearly in trouble only days after he started. On the whole, Mr. Garner took his hasty removal like the good soldier he is, without complaints or criticisms. There is one noteworthy exception. In November, he gave an interview to the British Broadcasting Corp. and cited several critical differences he had with Mr. Bremer and the Bush administration over how the United States should carry out its postwar plan. In the interview, he said it was a huge mistake to disband the Iraqi army and also throw all members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party out of their jobs. Thousands of families lost their means of support and fell into poverty. Also, people with the expertise to guide the reconstruction were cast aside. "I think it was a mistake," Mr. Garner told the BBC. "You’re talking about a million or more people that are suffering because the head of the household’s out of work." The administration made soldiers and professionals who could have been part of the solution in Iraq part of the problem. Hunger, unemployment and lack of basic utilities fueled the recruitment of insurgents. Iraqis who could have been hired to provide security became looters and guerrillas instead. "We had planned on bringing the army back and using them in reconstruction," Mr. Garner said. But Washington broke from the plan early on, then overruled him. Mr. Garner, 66, acknowledged that two of his biggest problems during his brief stay were having enough troops and police in the streets to provide order and having the qualified people who could expedite the return of basic public services -- for example, running water, electricity, transportation -- to return some measure of normalcy to daily lives. Nothing feeds insurgency like hunger, thirst and darkness. Rather than listen to Mr. Garner and follow Plan A for reconstruction, however, the administration took the advice of Ahmad Chalabi, the Shiite politician and Pentagon favorite who has headed the Iraqi National Congress and directed the committee in charge of removing former Baathists. Plan B under Mr. Chalabi was to widen the purge, not promote reconciliation. IMO, Bremer has always struck me as being a tad bit too "corporate" or maybe I’m prejudiced against Bremer because he is associated with State Dept...
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| Posted by:rex |
| #4 I was just glad to see them pull Barbara Bodine out of Iraq. She was the Ambassador to Yemen who thought it would be a good move to have US Navy ships take on fuel in the port of Aden. I don't understand how that type of performance, besides frustrating the investigation after the attack would rate her another significant assignment. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-05-03 11:05:53 PM |
| #3 Let's not kid ourselves. Iraq has no tradition of democracy. It can learn it. It can find its way into the twenty-first century. But it will be a slow process, involving education, and the Iraqis' willingness to trust in themselves for a change. Our Defense Department and our State Department have spent the last decade or more supporting various exile groups. Common sense would have told them that this was, at best, a self-limiting option. But who would expect a bureaucRAT to have any common sense? Who are these exiles?
The people of Iraq view them as carpetbaggers. Never mind who has the support of Don Rumsfeld or Colin Powell. Who has any support among the current residents of Iraq? Why would the people of Iraq vote to install an old band of crooks and thugs just because they escaped to America thirty years ago? Any exile group, Cuban, Iraqi, Irish, Palestinian, generally represents the former power structure and is first and foremost intent on restoring themselves to power. Arafat invokes the "right of return" primarily because he doesn't want them all returning to the West Bank and making trouble for his "wealth gathering" activities. The good old days the Cubans in Miami long for are Batista, the Mob, and dirt poor peasants. The fellows mournfully singing IRA songs in South Boston bars aren't welcome home by the Sinn Féin Gaelic. They represent a competition that the current thugs don't need. The installation of exiles as a government in Iraq does not serve the Iraqi people. Sure, they're less thuggish than Saddam. But who do you think is maintaining those militias? Every one of the members of the Governing Council is connected to an armed group and are just waiting for July 1. As much as I hate to agree with a UN guy, he has the right idea. The interim government, which will rule until elections, has to be of and for the Iraqi people, and not the favorite sons of the bureaucRATS in Washington. The notion that they may be thugs but they're our thugs is outmoded and unAmerican. Let's make the effort, including the stumbles that will happen, to give the Iraqis every chance at real freedom. Let's stand firm against the bureaucRATic games and minor league thuggery and probvide them with an interim government they can be proud of and build their country with. |
| Posted by: Chuck Simmins 2004-05-03 11:23:04 AM |
| #2 REVISIONIST HISTORY. The Iraqi army was not disbanded, it slinked away rather than fight or surrender like professional soldiers. As I recall, as the US forces reached the Baghdad airport, the Ba'athists slithered away too. And every Ba'athist official caught -- rather than crying poor mouse -- seemed to have a suitcase full of US hundred dollar bills and Kurdish dental gold in its possession. As I understand REAL HISTORY, Garner was always intended as an interim official short in tenure. Garner said so himself upon return to the USA. Maybe he is a liar, or drunk of sour grape juice, or flip-flops like sKerry, or he was MISQUOTED by the pro-Arabist, anti-American BBC. |
| Posted by: Garrison 2004-05-03 4:42:26 AM |
| #1 Funny how the anti-Pentagon, anti-Chalabi angle isn't in Garner's actual words (dug up from November!). Because he was going to do this. What media bias? |
| Posted by: someone 2004-05-03 3:45:56 AM |