Bremer on Iraq Mistakes, Rumsfeld Responds

L. Paul Bremer, the former senior U.S. official in occupied Iraq, pens an op-ed in today's New York Times in which he discusses ways things could have gone better for the Americans in that unfortunate land.

He starts off with a weak argument. Bremer has been long blamed for the de-Baathification of the puppet Iraqi government and the related dissolving of Iraq's Army. He claims now that he only wanted to ban one percent of the hard core Saddamists, but that the Iraqis themselves were too overzealous when implementing his plan.

No sale.

Bremer next whines about the cumbersome U.S. contracting rules, which he says, prevented necessary utilities from being repaired. Funny, it didn't stop millions (or billions) of dollars from being stolen from the reconstruction funds.

After the not-too-deft use of the misdirect, Bremer gets to the heart of the matter.

Bremer has recently insisted that he requested many more troops to administer the defeated country, but was rebuffed by Rumsfeld at Defense. In this op-ed, he candy-coats the issue into being a polite disagreement between honorable men.

Again, no sale.

At this stage in Bremer's piece, he veers off into fantasyland:

Despite the missteps and setbacks, there is little question that, thanks to efforts by the American-led coalition, enormous political and economic progress is being made in Iraq today.

Two years ago, Al Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab Zarqawi, told his followers there that there would be no place for them in a democratic Iraq. One year later, Iraqis voted in the country's first genuine elections. Then they wrote and approved a new Constitution. And last month 70 percent of voters turned out to elect a new Parliament. Now that body should modify the Constitution to address legitimate concerns of the Sunnis.

In one short paragraph, Bremer has managed to adopt the Bushian conflation of Zarqawi's group and Bin Laden's Al Qaeda, and misrepresents the prospects for the new Iraqi Parliament and Constitution.

As for Iraq's economy, at liberation it was flat on its back: the World Bank estimated that in 2003 the economy contracted by 41 percent. Now Iraq benefits from an independent central bank, and a new currency whose stability is a remarkable indicator of confidence. The economy is open to foreign investment and commercial laws have been modernized. The International Monetary Fund reports that per-capita income has doubled in the last two years and predicts that Iraq's economy will grow 17 percent this year. No wonder registration of new businesses has jumped 67 percent in the last six months.

If the above were true, major American corporations would be jumping over themselves to get into the Iraqi market. Needless to say, this has not materialized.

Bremer finishes with a knowing misrepresentation of the current situation in Iraq:

Despite these enormous stakes, some Americans have called for setting a timetable for our withdrawal or even pulling out now. This would be a historic mistake: a betrayal of the sacrifices Americans and Iraqis have made; a victory of the terrorists everywhere; and step toward a more dangerous world.

Putting forward his side of the story, yesterday Donald Rumsfeld insisted that he actually considered Bremer's request for more troops but was swayed by the persuasive arguments of the uniformed military commanders who were doing just fine with fewer troops.

Bremer's memo, dated May 18, 2004, urged Rumsfeld to dispatch as many as two additional divisions -- or about 30,000 troops -- to Iraq, to meet myriad demands, including fighting insurgents, border control and securing convoy routes. The request, disclosed in Bremer's new book on his year-long tenure in Iraq, reflected what he said was his fear that the United States was becoming "the worst of all things -- an ineffective occupier."...

"We did a very thorough analysis of that recommendation, and when we got done, all the chiefs agreed with the commanders in the field that the numbers of troops in the field then, as now, was appropriate to what we were fighting," Pace said.

Rumsfeld said he then showed the response from the Joint Chiefs to President Bush. "The president, as he has consistently, said that he preferred to go with the judgments of the military commanders on the ground," Rumsfeld said.

In any battle of bullies in Washington, the smart money will always be on Rumsfeld.