If only there had been SOME warning in 2003 that our policies would turn out to be so disasterous. Who could have possibly known?

Are there any other countries who have suffered under one-party rule, and have the members of that party purged from government or public-sector jobs? Which country could that be?

De-Baathification shows the limitation of historical analogies. As I recall, it was based on the de-Nazification program the allies led after the war. But the two situations weren't parallel.

While it's a definite change that Bush is attempting to do what he should have done in 2003, I don't believe for a second that he has or ever will undercut Chalabi.

They are, after all, brothers bonded by a common love for the petrodollar at any cost. And I suspect he could not undercut the crook without risk that Chalabi could reveal a few Bush skeletons from their very dark closet.

MP: You are correct in that de-Baathification was born from post WWII actions.

Here is a pretty well written article on the post invasion time frame:

Baghdad Year Zero
Pillaging Iraq in pursuit of a neocon utopia
Posted on Friday, September 24, 2004. Originally from Harper's Magazine, September 2004. By Naomi Klein.

http://www.harpers.org/BaghdadYearZero.html

....As the British historian Dilip Hiro has shown, in Secrets and Lies: Operation ‘Iraqi Freedom’ and After, the Iraqi exiles pushing for the invasion were divided, broadly, into two camps. On one side were “the pragmatists,” who favored getting rid of Saddam and his immediate entourage, securing access to oil, and slowly introducing free-market reforms. Many of these exiles were part of the State Department's Future of Iraq Project, which generated a thirteen-volume report on how to restore basic services and transition to democracy after the war. On the other side was the “Year Zero” camp, those who believed that Iraq was so contaminated that it needed to be rubbed out and remade from scratch. The prime advocate of the pragmatic approach was Iyad Allawi, a former high-level Baathist who fell out with Saddam and started working for the CIA. The prime advocate of the Year Zero approach was Ahmad Chalabi, whose hatred of the Iraqi state for expropriating his family's assets during the 1958 revolution ran so deep he longed to see the entire country burned to the ground—everything, that is, but the Oil Ministry, which would be the nucleus of the new Iraq, the cluster of cells from which an entire nation would grow. He called this process “de-Baathification.” snip...

Has anyone asked if Bremer knows what has happened to the missing money? And what has happened to Bremer?

You wonder if they have even the remotest idea of how governments work - or it may be even worse. I don't think they know what "work" is. You could see the surprise on Bush's face when he figured out that his administration was supposed to do something to help after Katrina. We couldn't see the day-to-day in Iraq, but those who could see have written some incriminating books. Bush has always had a coterie of family retainers to fix up his messes; but he didn't even understand that you're not supposed to fire the folks who are there to clean up after you.

This was covered on Frontline a while back.
http://snipurl.com/17k15
I do really not understand why everyone keeps acting like all knowledge of the failures are recent revelations.
First, did no one in the "think tanks" that supported and pushed this phony war consider that the Iraqi Shiite majority would naturally gravitate to Iran, the only Shiite state in the world?
"De-Baathifying" the army = forced unemployment of 1,000's of armed men who needed to feed their families and who generally were Baathists b/c of this need. Bremer was criminally incompetent.
Iran wins by geography - America can continue to escalate, to run in circles to keep itself in the middle of a civil war, which no occupying power in history has ever quieted.
When American forces eventually withdraw Iran will still be Iraq's next-door neighbor. The Sunni Baathists will look for help from Syria, a Sunni Baathist government. All of this information was there before the war and it will remain after the American troops are gone.
Anyone can get this information easily yet the Wise Old Men of Washington are still acting dumbfounded that their adolescent war fantasies have become such a debacle. Duh.

From the inspiration of your post, Paul, I revisited some archives that I think add a lot of perspective to the new way forward and why it was ignored for four long years.

This is not really a surprise. Jay Garner's people thought de-Baathification was stupid, and presumably Carney's just another person of the "Colin-Powell-good-soldier" variety who consciously mid-wifed Iraq into chaos.

It's still ultimately Bush's fault, but here's yet another example of Edmond Burke's warning about what happens when good people do nothing.

And still the lies keep flowing. Bush told CBS last night that the Iraqi people should be grateful that he invaded their country! That's obscene so NPR's not playing that quote over & over ever 30 minutes today, but yesterday, when he told the Dems to go jump. NPR repeated that propaganda line all day long.

I'm starting to think we should find some way to cut to the finish. Bush ought to try to get Syria (with Saudi and Egyptian backing) and Iran to take over the occupation. Syria can wall off the Sunnis for their protection and Iran the Shia. Let them spend their lives and treasure trying to make Iraqis get along. What's the worst that could happen? They'd succeed? Well Muslims need a few accompishments they can all be proud of. Pacifying Iraq where the mighy USA failed is better than building nukes any day.

If they failed we'd have Iran and Syria fighting an expensive proxy war or real war against each other in Iraq. Not good, but it's better than having our soldiers driving around waiting to get blown up or surging more in to kick down doors. I doubt Ahmadinejad and Assad and their armies will do a much better job at winning hearts and minds.
Either way it keeps them all busy.

The problem is if Bush proposes it nobody'd go for it. Frankly Iraq is such a mess only fools would try. But who knows? We could try to moonwalk out while issuing repeated feckless threats to Syria and Iran to not even think about it. Maybe even leave billions of dollars worth of shiny new oil field equipment spares lying around as an enticement for the Iranians. Hell the Syrians might jump in just to corner the market on those delicious Iraqi sheep. A few months of Bush demanding hands off his briar patch and the Weekly Standard idiots writing doomsday scenarios for the west if the Arabs and Persians come in might do the trick.

What do we have to lose? That seems to be the end game anyway.

I was in the process of writing these same thoughts when I came across your response and thought...exactly right. So if it's dawning on me and then I read it in your comment I feel hopeful that somehow in the collective unconscious these thoughts are being made manifest in the consciousness of all americans because truth has its own ring to it and this rings out loud and clear. Thanks for the post Mike Haitch. I will be forwarding it to many.

If Bush could imagine Saddam Hussein obtaining nuclear weapons why couldn't he imagine the possibility that his Iraq policy was wrong and woudn't work?

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