UK foreign secretary: US decision on Iraqi army led to rise of Isis

[bemildred]

Source: Guardian.UK

The UK has stepped up its criticism of the American conduct of the Iraq war, with the foreign secretary saying the single most disastrous mistake was the mass removal of supporters of the Ba’ath party from the Iraqi army, which he claimed had led directly to the formation of Islamic State.

“Many of the problems we see in Iraq today stem from that disastrous decision to dismantle the Iraqi army and embark on a programme of debaathification,” Philip Hammond, the foreign secretary, told the foreign affairs select committee.

“That was the big mistake of post-conflict planning. If we had gone a different way afterwards we might have been able to see a different outcome.”

He added: “It is clear a significant number of former Ba’athist officers have formed the professional core of Daesh [Isis] in Syria and Iraq and have given that organisation the military capability it has shown in conducting its operations.”

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/07/uk-foreign-secretary-us-decision-iraqi-army-rise-isis-philip-hammond

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Bremer's Folly.

[tonyt53]

1. The Iraqi army had years of combat experience fighting Iran. That experience was tossed aside.

Those former Iraqi officers are the reason that ISIS made such huge gains so quickly.

[bemildred]

2. China State News Agency Uses Chilcot to Attack U.S. Over Iraq

China’s state news agency Xinhua has responded to the Chilcot report’s publication by attacking the U.S. for trying to “force their values on other countries.”

In an editorial published Thursday on Sir John Chilcot’s inquiry into Britain’s involvement in the planning, execution and aftermath of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Xinhua wrote: “Britain's decision to join the U.S.-led war is a blind action to follow its U.S. ally, which spares no effort to intervene in other countries under the cover of democracy.

“Some Western countries, in particular the United States, have always tried to force their values on other countries without any respect for their own development paths.”

It brings to mind a prescient prediction made by Tony Blair in a note to George W. Bush shortly before the invasion, revealed by Chilcot. “We lose the high ground by forfeiting the U.N. route,” he wrote, “Take it away and this is about U.S. power, naked and in their face.”

http://www.newsweek.com/china-xinhua-agency-chilcot-iraq-us-478372

[bemildred]

3. US State Department will not respond to Chilcot report

The US State Department has said it will not respond to the Chilcot report's findings, as its focus is on tackling the issues present in the Middle East today.

We are not interested in re-litigating the decisions that lead to the Iraq War in 2003 ... we are not going to go through it [the report], we are not going to examine it, we are not going to try to make an analysis of it or make judgement of the findings one way or another. Our focus is on the challenges we have in Iraq and Syria right now.

I believe that UK officials are taking it seriously and I am going to let them speak to it ... but that's where our focus is right now, not on doing the forensics on decisions that were made 13 years ago.

– A spokesperson for the US State Department
Last updated Thu 7 Jul 2016

http://www.itv.com/news/update/2016-07-07/us-state-department-will-not-respond-to-chilcot-report/

[Nihil]

12. What did you expect from 8 years of "Looking forward"?

Those who don't learn from history, blah, blah, blah ...

[Craig234]

4. He's right

I've long said that the real issue is how badly Bush ran the postwar policies, and that gets very little attention compared to the war.

[bemildred]

6. They were told, at the time too, in their arrogance they didn't care. nt

[MisterP]

8. it's called a "stovepipe": only the "team players" get heard

[Craig234]

9. The incompetence and arrogance is sickening

They had a big agenda for turning Iraq into a right-wing economic laboratory, under the puppet Chalabi.

But things went so badly because of their idiocy - appointing young 20's who had no work experience who had applied to a right-wing think tank to senior positions in Iraq - that they weren't able to do those things and quickly got stuck in a civil war.

We really should better educate the public on just how badly it was handled. Now, the blame is mostly on the insurgency.

[Angel Martin]

5. I totally agree with the huge negative impact

of de-Baathification.

But it went far beyond the army. It was all public sector employees including the police forces, security services etc.

In effect what happened is that for a country of 40 million people, all the institutions of law enforcement disappeared, except for 150,000 foreign troops who didn't speak the language.

If they had kept everyone initially except for a very few of the top leadership, the outcome likely would have been very different.

It all wouldn't have been perfect, as you would have had Saddam loyalists "inside the wire" but the overall impact on law enforcement would have been much better.

[Grins]

7. Absolutely true!

This was in Der Spiegel a couple years ago and they identified the Lt. Col in Saddam's military who, royally pissed at Bremer's decision, began the development of what would become ISIS. Staying the background for safety and security, he found his public face, another angry Iraqi in the great hate-incubator - Abu Ghraib!

European and American interference in the middle east going back to the 19th century is the root cause of all of this. And our lock-step support of ANYTHING Israel does deepens that hate.

[Craig234]

10. And our nominee won't say one singe word about limiting anything Israel does

Even as they again build new illegal settlements.

[lark]

11. Ding, ding, winner chicken dinner!

I've been saying this forever, Bush created ISIS with his mistreatment of the Iraqui Sunnis and with the way he promoted the Shiaa over the Sunni. John McCain gets honoroable mention since he's the one that pushed us to fund Al Bagdadhi in Syria as one of the good guys. Voila, the area was ripe for a Sunni "supergroup" due to American mistreatment and then we gave them the $ they needed to actually fund ISIS and provided a whole lot of weapons for them to use to kill everyone else in the mid-east. Good job Repugs!