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The Axis of Ineptitude

By Larry Johnson on May 13, 2007 at 12:36 PM in Current Affairs

by

W. Patrick Lang

[Posted originally at Sic Semper Tyrannis)

Tenet, Bremer, Franks.  This is a trio of sycophants and self-serving careerists, largely devoid of creative thought and any real intellect who were given the job of managing history when all they really wanted was to manage their careers and incomes.  They truly deserve to be known as the "Axis of Ineptitude."

Bremer has been allowed by the neocon leadership of the Washington Post to place a whining, mendacious piece in this Sunday’s paper.

It is filled with evidence of his stupidity, ignorance and willingness to deceive in self defense.

Bremer writes:

Georgewbush_lpaulbremer20medal20of2 "Moreover, any thought of using the old army was undercut by conditions on the ground. Before the 2003 war, the army had consisted of about 315,000 miserable draftees, almost all Shiite, serving under a largely Sunni officer corps of about 80,000. The Shiite conscripts were regularly brutalized and abused by their Sunni officers. When the draftees saw which way the war was going, they deserted and, like their officers, went back home. But before the soldiers left, they looted the army’s bases right down to the foundations.

So by the time I arrived in Iraq, there was no Iraqi army to disband. Some in the U.S. military and the CIA’s Baghdad station suggested that we try to recall Hussein’s army. We refused, for overwhelming practical, political and military reasons."  Bremer

Bremer’s characterization of the old Iraqi Army is nonsense. 

That army was a NATIONAL army that stood at the very center of whatever NATIONAL institutions Iraq possessed.  That army fought very creditably against the Iranians.  Their performance has been much distorted in American popular imagination by the political warfare of the Iranians and their regional allies.  In the Iran-Iraq War the Iraqi national army’s mixed units fought well against the sectarian brethren of the Iraqi Shia.  There were many senior Shia officers in that army.  The commanding general of the Republican Guards Armored Corps in the invasion of Kuwait was a Shia lieutenant general.  He is currently employed in the Ministry of Defense in Baghdad.  The Iraqis did not fight in the First Gulf War?  Ask the US Marines of 2nd Marine Division who had to use MLRS in the "direct fire" mode to stop a counter-attack on their division CP just south of the Kuwait Airport.  Did you ever talk to them, Jerry?

US Forces found when they reached Baghdad in ’03 that the personnel records of the Iraqi military, including the Republican Guard, revealed that not more than 8% of the officer corps of the Iraqi military had been members of the Baath Party.  See "Cobra II" for that "nugget."

The army, including the Guard, did not fight us hard in ’03?  That’s right.  They did not.  The poor fools believed Bremer’s government’s propaganda which held out to them the prospect that they would participate in building a new Iraq.  It was the Baathist militias who fought us.  They fought rather hard. 

The understanding of the US military before the war was that the Iraqi military would be employed in stabilizing the country.  American generals were discussing the basis of that cooperation with their Iraqi counter-parts when Bremer (Feith’s lapdog) announced that they were out of business.  The Iraqi military felt betrayed then, and still do.  It had all been a lie.  Nothing has changed. 

  • http://noquarter.typepad.com susanUnPC

    Underlying all of this is the belief in American superiority that has doomed other aspects of the Iraqi misadventure. Then there is an ignorance of the levels of sophistication, education, and talents of Iraqis in general.

    This all smacks of ELITISM: How could an Iraqi-trained army possibly be capable? Surely the Iraqi army was composed of third-world sub-literate sorry souls?

    And, how could they ever be made capable without endless training by vastly superior U.S. troops? (Of course, the problems in training the current Iraqi troops has nothing to do with their lack of ability or their ignorance, but with their conflicted views of U.S. occupation and their allegiances to their sects and tribes.)

    Pat points out that many in the U.S. military counted on the abilities of the Iraqi military. It was the political leadership that was wholly ignorant.

    The White House and Pentagon political leaders probably knew as little as those of us in the public who only got our opinions about the Iraqi military from the U.S. press’s depiction of surrendering sad-sack Iraqi soldiers during the Gulf War.

  • http://profile.typekey.com/mpumpky/ PrchrLady

    Yes, well said. I would only add that this axis, with the complicity of the administration, has about done the same thing to our own army… his words “315,000 miserable draftees’ shows how little he thinks of soldiers… no matter where they are from… like cheny calling our soldiers pawns… may they all rot in hell.

  • Leslie

    Why didn’t Bremer consult with the Joint Chiefs of Staff before officially disbanding the army he claims disbanded itself? Bremer says that the US military and the CIA’s Baghdad station suggested recalling the Iraqi army. But Bremer says, “we decided” not to. Who is WE?

    At the end of his oped, Bremer writes:
    “No doubt some members of the Baath Party and the old army have joined the insurgency. But they are not fighting because they weren’t given a chance to earn a living. They’re fighting because they want to topple a democratically elected government and reestablish a Baathist dictatorship. The true responsibility for today’s bloodshed rests with these people and their al-Qaeda collaborators.”

    Bremer believes a US-approved predominately Shiite government, which has largely shut out Sunnis, is an example of democracy? He believes al Qaeda and Sunni ex-Baathist insurgents are in league together, and they’re to blame for the civil war. The al Qaeda presence in Iraq is around 7%. If Baathists and al Qaeda are working together, the Baathists would quickly kill AQ types once they stopped being useful. But it’s not just Baathists and al Qaeda who are fighting. There are Shiite extremists, such as Badr’s Brigades and the Mahdi Army, who are also fighting. There is ethnic cleansing going on. Bremer overlooks all of that, misrepresenting the conflict in over-simplified terms.

    Link to Bremer’s oped: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/11/AR2007051102054_2.html

  • Sandy

    Wow, don’t even get me started on Paul Bremer!

    He’s the one who brought in BLACKWATER to protect him. Think of the long-term impact of that!

    Also….all those “missing” BILLIONS!!!

    For example:

    http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/08/1611246

    REP. HENRY WAXMAN: “Little more than a year, $12 billion in US currency removed from the vaults of the Federal Reserve and flown into Iraq, this money, mainly $100 bills, were packed into bricks, and each brick was worth $400,000 each. And I think we have a picture of the bricks on the screen. They were assembled into large palettes containing over $60 million in cash and flown into Iraq.

    In December 2003, Ambassador Bremer and the Coalition Provision Authority asked for a shipment of $1.5 billion to be flown into Iraq, and a Federal Reserve official described this in an email as the largest payout of US currency in US history.

    But this didn’t remain the largest for very long, because in June, $2.4 billion was sent to Iraq, and this time the Federal Reserve official wrote, quote, “Just when you think you’ve seen it all, the CPA is ordering $2,401,600,000 in currency.”

    Well, the question this committee is trying to answer is, WHAT HAPPENED TO THE MONEY? Was it spent responsibility? Was it misspent? Was it wasted? Did it go out to pay off corrupt officials?

    Or, worst of all, did some of this money get in the hands of the insurgents and those who are fighting us today in Iraq?

    Ambassador Bremer, are you concerned about the possibility that some of this money went to ghost employees — we don’t know where it went — and might be showing up in the hands of insurgents that are fighting US troops?

    PAUL BREMER: If there were evidence of that, I would certainly be concerned.

    REP. HENRY WAXMAN: We don’t know whether there’s evidence of it, but we don’t —

    PAUL BREMER: I don’t know.

    REP. HENRY WAXMAN: — know whether the people who got the money were entitled to it or what they did with it.

    PAUL BREMER: Well, as the inspector general pointed out, the problem of ghost employees was certainly there, and it was there even before the invasion. But I have no knowledge of monies being diverted. I would certainly be concerned if I thought they were.

    REP. HENRY WAXMAN: Well, $12 BILLION IS A LOT OF MONEY. It could have been used for a lot of projects that American taxpayers ended up funding through appropriations.

    It seems to me inconceivable that we can’t explain what happened to it, but that seems to be the situation we’re in.”

    Calling Paul Bremer “incompetent” gives him far too much leeway…..too much “credit”.

    How much would YOU be willing to bet he was lining his own pockets with some of those missing BILLIONS?

  • Sandy

    “Ineptitude”? With all due respect, Col. Lang….”ineptitude”? Really?

    What about the BILLIONS in OIL missing in Iraq as the New York Times reported yesterday?

    http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/12/world/middleeast/12oil.html?ei=5065&en=4881a2134cb37032&ex=1179633600&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print

    May 12, 2007

    Billions in Oil Missing in Iraq, U.S. Study Says
    By JAMES GLANZ

    “Between 100,000 and 300,000 barrels a day of Iraq’s declared oil production over the past four years is unaccounted for and could have been siphoned off through corruption or smuggling, according to a draft American government report.

    Using an average of $50 a barrel, the report said the discrepancy was valued at $5 million to $15 million daily….”

    What you are calling “ineptitude” I would call clever in-your-face THEFT.

    These neo-cons know EXACTLY what they are doing.

    And they don’t give a DAMN if we ask questions….or issue subpoenas…. or raise questions or mock their competency. They just keep on doing what they are doing. Just look at the grinning mugs of Bush and his buddy Abu Gonzales. Grinning. In your face, people!

    THEY are laughing at….mocking….us.

  • Shirin

    Ah yes, the pompous little popinjay Paul Bremer, erstwhile Iraq Viceroy and fashion maven!

    That money-hungry little son of a donkey jumped on the terrorism train and declared himself an anti-terrorism expert (with what qualifications?) so he could start a company and profit from the terrorism-mania.

    The little a**h*** was so arrogant he boasted that he hadn’t bothered to learn anything about Iraq before going to rule it and determine its future. He didn’t even bother to read the stupid useless bull**** in U.S. government pamphlets he was given to read on the plane. “I don’t need no steeenkeeeng knowledge!”

    Oh yes – and the doltish son of an idiot somehow managed to not learn any Arabic despite supposedly receiving an hour of private instruction every morning while he was in Baghdad.

    And under the watch of this bumbling, self-important puffed-up self-proclaimed anti-terrorism expert, Iraq went from a terrorist free zone to being – well, what it is today.

    Other than that and about a hundred other screw-ups, he is an exemplary guy. Great job, Bremmy!

  • shargash

    “The army, including the Guard, did not fight us hard in ’03? That’s right. They did not.”

    The lack of resistance against the 2003 invasion was almost certainly part of Saddam’s resistance plan. He learned in the 1st Gulf War that his army wasn’t going to be able to stop the Americans by a conventional defense. So he had numerous stockpiles of weapons & explosives buried around the country. He had his best troops take off their uniforms and become guerillas (the meaning behind the news reports during the invasion of pickup trucks full of un-uniformed Fedayeen).

    Saddam knew he couldn’t stop the US from marching to Baghdad, so he did the next best thing. He made sure there was a well-armed, organized resistance from the very beginning. Almost certainly, he believed that was Iraq’s best chance at defeating America. Almost certainly, he was right.

  • BrendaStewart

    Sandy, my Dear, I DO like the way you think…..I so agree with that which you say. I remember seeing the site of him flying out of that land by chopper and the look on his face was that of a very rich man. I bet his bags, if searched, would reveal lots of $100 bills.

    Bremmer and all can go to where the sun does not shine and where it does not freeze.

  • Montag

    The Pentagon had an apt term for people like Richard Perle, Newt Gingrich and Paul Bremer–”plastic Rambos.”

  • Graybeard

    Here’s something I sent to “a few close personal friends back in Feb:”

    363 Tons… and the U.S. taxpayer is another day older and deeper in debt.

    The “company store” is the Bush administration, whose Iraq war is now costing $10 billion per month. St. Peter is Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and, oh yeah, he’s heard our calls, beginning with yesterday’s hearing that disclosed that “$8.8 billion in cash was disbursed without adequate financial controls” and that 363 tons of U.S. currency — “shrink-wrapped into $400,000 bricks and carried on C-130 cargo planes” — was “handed it over to Iraqi ministries with only the sketchiest accounting controls.” http://noquarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/02/363_tons.html

    Early Coalition Provisional Authority jobs were awarded based on service to the Republican party. The only business experience of the 24 year old guy sent to set up the new Iraqi stock exchange was as a Good Humor man.

    —-

    We become numbed to Washington spending a billion here, a billion there. One Billion US dollars is 82,500 pounds of $100 bills!

    I’ll let you do the math on how many $100 bills are in a pound. Hint: there are Ten Million $100 bills in a $Billion.

    So we are pouring 825,000 pounds of $100 bills down that rat hole Iraq every month.

  • ybnormal

    “The understanding of the US military before the war was that the Iraqi military would be employed in stabilizing the country.”

    This is yet another example of the gross incompetence and grotesque foolishness of the jackass in chief and most of the executive branch.

    The public, both right and left, needs to get past the bullshit notion that we went in with no plans. There most certainly were plans, hordes of them, many of which took years to develop. What is it people think they’re doing all day in that really big 5-sided building in D.C.? Based on their knowledge of military history, and their knowledge of what is time-proven to work and what does not; guess what? THEY MAKE PLANS – AND LOTS OF THEM!

    Ignoring them was the failure of incompetence of this administration. Further, the failure of the self-serving neocon ideology, is the failure of self-righteously arrogant pre-emptive domination.

    Collectively as voters, we are also responsible. We lost our respect and regard for professional competence, and also our consideration of the perspective of others, because we presume mistakenly to know more about what’s best for others; even more than they themselves do.

  • nellieh

    Has there ever been a war run by such unable a$$h*les as those that have been making decisions in this one? Westmoreland comes to mind, but after him, who? Or, for as bogus reasons? AND GET REWARDED? The wartime experience of all of them is practically non-existant. Entering a war it would be my belief that having a legitimate reason and mobilizating the ENTIRE country would be the first and second priorities. Citizens and manufacturers. With NO WAR PROFITEERING! How could these cretins be so wrong about EVERYTHING? And EVERYTHING they have tried has turned to crap. No one has/will be held accountable and THAT IS A CRIME!!!

  • oldtree

    what is largely horrible is that I bet you get no argument on this observation.

    they mean to subvert government to make money. they just make no bones about it the way law abiding citizens do

  • Gypsy

    And with all that we know to be true and all that can already be proven as well as all that could be proven in an impeachment, we still don’t seem to have the will yet to impeach. What is impeachment meant to be used for if it isn’t this administration?

  • Shirin

    Nir Rosen has a killer op ed response to Bremer’s whiny, lying bull**** in tomorrow’s WaPo. Check it out here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/15/AR2007051501322_pf.html

    “Bremer himself never understood Iraq, knew no Arabic, had no experience in the Middle East and made no effort to educate himself — as his statements clearly show.” And Nir is being waaaaay to nice to Bremer.

  • Shirin

    Nir Rosen has a killer op ed response to Bremer’s whiny, lying bull**** in tomorrow’s WaPo. Check it out here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/15/AR2007051501322_pf.html

    “Bremer himself never understood Iraq, knew no Arabic, had no experience in the Middle East and made no effort to educate himself — as his statements clearly show.” And Nir is being waaaaay to nice to Bremer.

  • leslie

    Shirin you beat me to it…I was just about to post Nir Rosen’s WaPo oped too.

    Rosen: “Many Iraqis saw the Americans as new colonists, intent on dividing and conquering Iraq. That was precisely Bremer’s approach.”

    That’s still the Bush administration approach, such as: walling off sections of Baghdad, creating sectarian ghettos. US forces aren’t prepared to prevent the ethnic cleansing we helped create either.

    And the Bushies rail against alleged Iranian support for Sunni al Qaeda types. [Forget Iran is Shiite and was in a struggle against Pakistan over its support for the Taliban and al Qaeda.] Nevermind Bush supports the Badr Brigade, which is most closely aligned with Iran. Or that he’s reportedly working with Saudi Arabia and others to support Sunni militias as a bulwark against Iran. Even though Sunni militias are primarily killing US troops. As a result, Bush is setting the stage for future regional conflict. Pretty amazing feat for an administration that couldn’t tell the difference between a Shiite and a Sunni and could care less about al Qaeda.