Why did the US disband Saddam's military after beating it?

[Italian Guy]

I'm with you on the NYT thing.
But the article is about two experts (a current Bush advisor and a Clinton one) who explain disbanding the Iraqi Army was right.
They say there was no such thing as an Iraqi Army as of the spring of 2003, and regrouping it would have been endless effort.
It's an interesting article indeed.

 

[Grimmy]

I think history will judge the handling of the Iraqi Army to be the biggest mistake of the war.

2 years later and we are still trying to train a few companies up to strength when we had a full army at the beginning.

Obviously there where better ways to go about handling this.

I disagree. The Iraqi Army, what was left of it, was not anywhere near competent. It was a cluster gaggle of forced conscriptees watched over by loyalist officers. There was almost no training. To call them a "full army" is much like calling a pile of raw lumber a house.

There was no real option to disbanding them. There was nothing to gain by keeping them. As military goes, they were disfunctional to the point of uselessness.
Also, feature this. What would have been the obvious hostile propaganda result of keeping the army of Saddam intact?

Every libernazi that's now squallin about how its all fubar because that eeveel Bush disbanded the iraqi army would now be squalin just as loudly that ist all fubar because that eeveel Bush didnt disband the iraqi army.

And those scum in the arab press would be putting it up as proof possitive that the US made a deal with the iraqi army and that is was the iraqi army that defeated Saddam, not the Coalition...and therefore nothing legitimate can come from all these pretenses at elections...cause it's all obviously rigged to support the American's cronies in the iraqi army.

 

[Italian Guy]

Good points there.