It wasn't the soldiers that worried me when they disbanded the Iraqi army. A large percent where unwilling conscripts. Letting them go home was fine, though I would have made an offer to let them stay. Many probably would have if we paid them a regular salary.

It was letting the officer corp go that was a major mistake. They where exactly the people who knew enough to be dangerous. Many of them where too closely tied to the old Saddam government to have a place in the new one. But turning them loose in a population that hated them was just asking for them to go criminal.

What the US should have done is set up a base close to one of the cities, move most of the officers there and essentially put them under house arrest. That way they would be handy if we needed to arrest or question them, and they wouldn't be out starting insurgent groups.

Bremer was right that the army would need a major purge at some point. But the way he went about it left a lot of people unemployed and said the worst elements that they had better do something before we got around to prosecuting them.

Jay