The Post on Thursday

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The Post on Thursday has an <$NoAd$>article on the growing consensus that disbanding the Iraqi army was a fundamental error and how the CPA is now racing to build a new Iraqi army in its place to help bolster security now and defend a new Iraqi government in the not-too-distant future.

In the course of the piece there’s this section with views from different players.

“This was a mistake, to dissolve the army and the police,” said Ayad Alawi, head of the security committee of the Iraqi Governing Council. “We absolutely not only lost time. The vacuum allowed our enemies to regroup and to infiltrate the country.”

Retired Marine Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, a vocal opponent of the war, calls the move the Bush administration’s “worst mistake” in postwar Iraq.

Supporters of the decision counter that the army posed a potential threat to a fledgling Iraqi governing authority and U.S. forces — and that it was so second-rate and so infiltrated with Baath Party figures that it could not be salvaged.

“The Iraqi army was a pretty sick organization in a lot of respects,” said Douglas J. Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy, who played a role in the demobilization decision. “There was quite a bit of cruelty — abuse by the senior officers of the junior people — and there was quite a bit of corruption.”

Imagine that. Doug Feith thought (and still thinks) it was a good idea. And his judgment is usually so on the mark.

On the other hand, Chalabi convinced Cheney that disbanding the army was a dynamite plan. So he probably convinced Feith too.

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