Fateful Choice on Iraq Army Bypassed Debate
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
Published: March 17, 2008
BAGHDAD — When President Bush convened a meeting of his National Security Council on May 22, 2003, his special envoy in Iraq made a statement that caught many of the participants by surprise. In a video presentation from Baghdad, L. Paul Bremer III informed the president and his aides that he was about to issue an order formally dissolving Iraq’s Army.
...the decision was made without thorough consultations within government, and without the counsel of the secretary of state or the senior American commander in Iraq, said the commander, Lt. Gen. David D. McKiernan.
Lt. Gen. J. D. Thurman, who serves as the Army’s chief operations officer and was the top operations officer for General McKiernan at the time, had a similar recollection. “We did not get a chance to make a comment,” he said in an e-mail message. “Not sure they wanted to hear what we had to say.”
Overall, this is another example of the dysfunctional nature of the Bush regime.
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1 comment:
Please post on the despicable war criminal (somebody,anybody,anywhere in the world, arrest the guy) Cheney's shallow triumphant braying today about the "worthwhile" vindicated war in Iraq--all while two more (at least) US soldiers are killed, a dysfunctional entity some call a "government" (not sure it's cohesive enough to even call an "entity") cowers behind the Green Zone, and most sadly, another 39 Iraqis are bombed to smithereens in Karbala.
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