No End in Sight (2007) - full transcript
Chronological look at the fiasco in Iraq, especially decisions made in the spring of 2003 - and the backgrounds of those making decisions - immediately following the overthrow of Saddam: no occupation plan, an inadequate team to run the country, insufficient troops to keep order, and three edicts from the White House announced by Bremmer when he took over: no provisional Iraqi government, de-Ba'athification, and disbanding the Iraqi armed services. The film has chapters (from History to Consequences), and the talking heads are reporters, academics, soldiers, military brass, and former Bush-administration officials, including several who were in Baghdad in 2003.
DONALD RUMSFELD (Secretary of Defense 2001-2006)
The...
great respect that I have...
for your leadership, mister President...
in this...
little understood
unfamiliar...war
The first war in the 21st century.
It is not well known, it was not
well understood...
It is complex for people
to comprehend...
and I know with certainty
that over time...
the...
contributions you made,
will be recorded by history.
NO END IN SIGHT
Thank You
U.S.A
Baghdad, Iraq 2006
We severely condemn criminal
action by U.S forces.
We mourn the catastrophe by
the hands of evil forces.
We demand the execution
of the Wahabi unbelievers
who have the support
of the Americans.
They have been arrested
and admitted their guilt
before all who saw them.
We demand their execution.
On May 1, 2003,
president George W. Bush...
declared an end to major
combat operations in Iraq, and said...
" In the battle of Iraq, the US
and our allies have prevailed. "
Four years later, after over
3,000 american deaths...
and over 20,000
american wounded,...
Iraq has disintegrated
into chaos.
Baghdad suffers from ten
to fifteen bombings a day...
perhaps 50 deceased in act of service...
but I suspect that's
drastically underreported
We're probably catch a third
of what's actually occurring.
Millions of Iraqis have lost
access to drinking water...
sewage treatment and electricity
since the invasion.
Baghdad, a city of 6 million...
has been under an 8 PM curfew
since March of 2006.
Over 3 million Iraqis have fled
to neighbouring countries.
Estimates of the civilian death toll
range as high as 600,000
People who... die are lucky...
But people living,... they are dead
while they're alive.
The west and the north of Iraq
are controlled by the insurgents.
The rest of Iraq
is controlled by the militias.
Iraq's two major moslem groups, the
Chiít majority and Sunni minority...
are increasingly in war.
They executed them for being Sunnis.
We have been living together
until this day.
This is an Iranian wave against us.
An Iranian wave.
We are Muslims. How is this possible?
They say they are the Army of Mahdi.
Is this what the Mahdi army does?
Look what he's become.
Open the sack,
let them see his face.
From January, 2003 until January, 2005...
I was a president
of the National Council of Intelligence.
We produced the first national estimate
on the state of the insugency in Iraq.
The estimate delivered
pretty bad news.
It basically laid out
bad, worse and worsed scenarios.
The president
called it guesswork...
and his press spokesman
called it...
Hand-wringing and Nay-saying.
What was only reveling to me
was the president hadn't read it.
This is the history of
America's invasion of Iraq.
It is a story in which many people
tried to save a nation.
On September 11, 2001 was a
very clear, bright beautiful day.
I had just come back from
the Pentagon barber-shop.
walked by my office and glanced
up on the TV-screen, and...
there was...
one of the twin-towers
burning.
Pentagon Surveillance Camera
We never heard the plane comming in
at least I didn't.
Suddenly, the whole world
turned upside down.
I saw that fire-ball... and... I tell you...
I saw that.. and I said to my self
I'm going to die today.
That plane had come directly
under our section of the offices.
The Army budget office.
where 38 Army employees where killed
was directley beneath us.
and the Navy's new command center,
was two floors beneath us
everybody was killed
in those two sections.
This was something Osama Bin Laden
had orchestrated...
because he was the only terrorist
I could think of...
who could have
coordinated this
kind of activity.
- So you had this thought think immediately?
- Immediately. Immediately.
A month after September 11,
the US entered Afghanistan...
in search of Al Qaeda
and of Osama Bin Laden.
But even before the Afghan war
several senior administaration officials...
were looking at
another target.
One that had nothing to do
with the 9/11 attacks.
When the plane(s ?) hit the Pentagon,
I was in the building.
And then...I guess the next...
big thing that sort of happened, was we...
immidialely got tasked...
to see if we could draw
any relationship
between Saddam and Al Qaeda.
I went right away to the...
to the counter
terrorism...group...
to their chief Iraqi analyst..
And the two of us
sat down over a few days...
and looked at... all the historical reportning
that we could go through
In which you conclude?
Well we concluded that
there was no relation.
His regime aids and protects terrorists,
including members of Al Qaeda.
We continue to watch Iraq's involment
in terrorist activities.
What I want to bring
to your attention today, is...
the potentially much more
sinister nexus between...
Iraq and the Al Qaeda
terrorist network.
We don't want the smoking gun
to be a mushroom cloud.
Iraq has drones
and they'ar gonna take this drones
and put them on this ships
and they'ar gona arm the drones with...
chemical biological weapon...
and they'ar gona fly
these drones of the ships...
and attack the
east coast of US.
You know, this is
absolut fantasy land.
I don't know what
they were smoking...
but it must have
been very good.
George W. Bush's,
foreign policy inner circle.
Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz...
set the administration on course
for war with Iraq.
Condolezza Rice
sided with them.
Colin Powell and Richard Armitage...
the only senior officials
with combat experience...
expressed concerns privately....
but supported the
administration in public.
HISTORY
Bush's advisors had
been involved with Saddam Hussein...
since he invaded Iran in 1980...
in a brutal war that killed
nearly a million people.
Iraq used chemical weapon...
against both the Iranian military
and innocent civilans.
Saddam invested
billions (n x 10^9) of dollars...
in nuclear, chemical and biological
weapons programs
while murdering 300,000
of his own citizens.
But the Reagan administration, fearing Iran
supported Saddam with military
intelligence and economic aid.
Donald Rumsfeld met
with Saddam in 1983.
Colin Powell was Reagan's
national security advisor
from 1987 to 1989.
The 80s really summed up...
in a dreadfull...
but very very telling
State Departement document...
from 1987...
which said...
human rights and chemical weapons
used aside,...
our interest run roughly
parallell to those of Iraq.
The Iran - Iraq war ends
in stalemate in 1988.
In 1990, Saddam invades Kuwait.
A US lead coalition
expelles him...
in a war masterminded by
Dick Cheney, then Secretary of Defense...
Paul Wolfowitz, then Under Secretary of Defense for Policy...
and Colin Powell, then Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The first President Bush urges the Iraqi's
to stage a coup against Saddam.
There is another way
for the bloodshed to stop...
and that is for the Iraqi military
and the Iraqi people...
to take matters into their own hands
and force Saddam Hussein,
the dictator....
to step aside...
Yet when Iraq's southern
Shiit's rise up
the administration allows
Saddam to repress them
14... out of Iraq's 18 govenors (provinces)...
where under rebel control...
when general Schwartzkopf...
allowed... Saddam Hussein
to use...
helicopter gunships...
to massacre... the rebels...,
men, women and children.
The 1991 armistice requires
Iraq to disarm.
but Saddam refuses
to comply.
As a results Iraq's
economy crumbles
under a UN embargo
instituted in 1993
and continued by the
Clinton administration
Saddam's favored elite
remain welthy
but ordinary Iraqis are
plunged into extreme poverty
and many turned
fundamentalist Islam
In 1993, when
George Bush senior visits Kuwait...
Saddam attempts to assissnate him.
Seven years later, his son
is elected president of the US.
When you see the same architects
of those policies...
on the one hand,
talking about
getting right what they had
gotten wrong, back in 1991, you know...
finishing the job.
I was tempting to say,
well... mybe they've learned.
Saddam Hussein and his sons...
must leave Iraq within 48 hours.
A refusal to do so,
will result in military conflict...
commenced...
at a time of our choosing.
NATIONAL SECURITY
PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE - NUMBER 24
If you want to date the beginning of the
disaster of postwar Iraq...
it would be
January 20, 2003...
when Bush signed without,
as far as I can tell...
any real discussion within the
White House or the administration...
National Security
Presidential Directive - Number 24
which gave control of postwar Iraq
to the Pentagon.
That document essentially made
Donald Rumsfeld...
the main actor
on postwar Iraq.
This war was conceived by a very
small group of people inside
the Bush administration.
they had an entirely and naive
vision of what Iraq was
and what Iraqis would do
once the regime fell.
In formulating its views on
post-saddam Iraq
the administration relied
heavily on a man named Ahmed Chalabi.
Since 1992,
Chalabi had been president...
of the Iraqi National Congress, or INC.
Widely viewed with
suspicion.
Chalabi had been convicted in Jordan
over a huge bank fraud.
The intelligence comunity found
his information unreliable...
or even fraudulent.
At best I think...
they were liars.
and at worst,
they were provocateurs.
If it's an INC source...
it was always looked at
very very sceptically...
by the analyst.
But that wasn't the case
with policy makers.
Chalabi asserted that postwar Iraq
would be pro-american
and easily stabilized...
particularly if Chalabi
himself was in charge
And so the plan was, essetially...
we'll stay for three or four months
we will install... a goverment made up
of exiles..
and lead by Ahmed Chalabi...
and then, in August or September, 2003...
we will begin...a drastic
reduction of troops.
Larry Di Rita addressed us
in one form and said
by the end of August, 2003...
we will have all but
25 to 30,000 troops out of Iraq.
I heard him say that
in a room full of people
And I turned to my colleagues
I said this guy doesn't know
what he's talking about
It's physically impossible.
The Future project of Iraq
of the department of the state...
a 13 volume study on
postwar Iraq...
was ignored by the Pentagon.
It was an awful lot of
thinking at state department
boards feet of volumes
on how we should do this.
Almost non of this...
was integrated in the
Pentagons thinking.
Secretaries frustration,
along with my own, grew
as we watched our carefull planning,
our detailed planning...
essentially discarded...
and the people involved in it,
essentially discarded
so that more loyal...
in line with the the republican
party's view and so forth...
people could be apointed
key positions in Iraq.
THE WAR
At this hour,...
American and coalition forces
are in the early stages of
military operations...
to disarm Iraq,
to free its people...
and to defend the world
from great danger.
I joined the Marine because I always
thought it as a really important job...
and didn't feel I'll be content
with myself going through life
knowing that other people
had fought for my freedom.
I joined the army to ah...
support my country...and ah...
thought it was a good thang
to do, ya know...
It was...
an honor...
To go there and help my
fellow soldiers...
to do...
what they telled us
to go and do there
maybe... take out a... dictator...
out of the... power...
to reestablish
the democracy.
I just... was waiting for
the war to happen
because it was the...
the only ray of hope I had
to look for...
And when it happened,
I was... excited,
that things would move slowly...
but... towards
better circumstances.
Thank you, mister Bush.
We very like mister Bush!
Not, not to Saddam! Yes, yes to Bush!
Not, not to Saddam! Yes, yes to Bush!
Oh people, look what
he's done,
look what he's done to Iraq!
It was a confusing,
laud, noisy...
scarry, hopefull place
all kind of wrapped up together.
I would se kids with...ski caps on
that would say FBI across it.
They were giving me
the big thumbs up
And other young men...
who probably were fedayin,
in civilian clothes
giving me very
hard stares...and...
kind of sizing
me up and...
always looking at the
licens plate of the car.
The Iraqis were...waiting to see
what this was going to bring them.
The presence of the Americans had not been
rejected...
yet, by the Iraqis.
No Saddam, no Saddam!
I've seen people welcoming
the coalition troops...
Because we thought...
everything is planned,
everything is prepared.
There you go!
During World War 2, the US
started planning the occupation of Germany...
2 years in advance.
But the Bush administration
didn't create the organization...
that would manage the
occupation of Iraq...
until 60 days
before the invasion.
ORHA - Organization for
Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance
Reported directly to
Defense Secretary Rumsfeld.
I got a call from the office of
Secretary Defense...
in late January and
they were life meeting.
Handle humanitarian affairs,
reconstruction.
Retired Army General Jay Garner,
was appoited to run ORHA.
In the first Golf War
he had commsnded 22.000 soldiers...
resposible for humanitarian
operations...
in the Kurdish zone
of northen Iraq.
This time, he would be
running the entire country.
Did you... think you were
prepared to run Iraq.
I don't think we were ever prepared,
I mean...
A task of that magnitude probably
takes years to prepare.
Because nobody had years.
I got a call
on my cellphone
From someone at
the State Department,
telling me that Rich Armitage
was looking for me...
and wanted me back
in Washington,... right now.
Ambassador Barbara Bodine
was placed in charge of Baghdad...
only 3 weeks before the war.
She was a career Foreign Service officer
who had served in Yemen, Iraq...
and had been a hostage
in Kuwait five months...
after Saddam's in 1990.
She was one of the few
State Department middle East experts,
that the Pentagon
allowed into Iraq.
She was one of the
few we could get in.
I thought they initially made a misstake
They thought they had a woman
and she would be an easy mark
But Barbara was the
toughest member of the service.
By 2003, army colonel Paul Hughes...
had worked in the Pentagon
for 6 years...
doing planning and strategy work...
for senior Defense Department officials
I wound up being assigned
to the...
Office of Reconstruction and
Humanitarian assistans...
under Jay Garner.
And I was the director
of strategic policy, for him.
ORHA started work at the Pentagon 50 days
before the invasion of Iraq.
We were given a
sweat off offices
that had been unoccupied
for a couple of years.
Had no computers in it,
you have people showing up daily
asking
"Where do I sit?"
They had no staff.
I had no personnel,
I had nothing from...
either a senior deputy
down to a secretary
There is only one meeting at
the National Defense University.
and it was the...I think
concensus opinion.
of the people who went
to that meeting...
with whom I spoke afterwards.
That hey...
"This is a crazy".
that was our
first meeting...
and we're not given
a hole lot of confidece
by there first meeting...
because, essentially...
we didn't do anything
except meet each other.
It was completely
unstructured.
There were no plans.
There truely were...
no plans.
On the 16th of March, ORHA
flew out to Kuwait City.
we had 167 people
that flew with us.
167 people that were to
essetially become the
government of a
country of 25 millions.
BAGHDAD, APRIL 9th, 2003
After the fall of Baghdad...
we had no idea what really
was gonna happen
and there certainly didn't seem
to be much of a plan
What we generally
were being told
is that we'd be getting
back on the ships
within a month or two... of...,
essentially conquering Iraq.
As American forces entered the capital,
looting broke out everywhere.
While we were in Kuwait, we were as
glued to the TV, as everyone else.
There was the realization...
that there was
absolute lawlessnes
and chaos
going on in Iraq.
The Americans were'nt
doing anything. They....
would... sit at
certain intersections, but...
they wouldn't actually get out of the
HUMV's or out of the tanks
and really do much.
Time passed and we
didn't see any progress.
The only progress we found is
the uncontrolled freedom.
Looters had... to loot all
the govermental buildings
and even private ownd companies.
The looting was partly a
factor of the troop levels...
and the sens that Rumsfeld
communicated to his commanders...
and his commanders
communicated down the chain...
to the...platoon and
compay level.
That... we were not there
to run Iraq.
We were there to get rid
of the regime, and get out.
We are not under
martial law here.
In his order, general McKiernan
was not told...
to establish martial law.
Not once was
martial law declared.
I just...I'll tell you honestly.
We're in a transition period.
I mean, there is an
Iraqi civil law...
but there
is no...
You just heard we just opened up
they first two courts today...
so, I mean when you
starting at nothing
Had martial law been declared,
wich would have been...
authorized under the
4th Geneva Convention...
maby we would have had...
a bit more security.
We are a platoon of marines',
I mean we could...
we could certainly stop
looting, if we...
if that was our
assigned task.
The greatest mystery...
of postwar Iraq
involves that month or so
after the fall of Baghdad...
Why the US didn't do anything to...
to control the looting.
Because in a way...
everything that has been
a problem since then,
started that first month.
People at the
National Security Council
secretary Powell,
myself and others...
CIA director, did express
concern about the looting.
Did you express any concern
to president Bush?
I was at the meeting where it
was expressed by my boss.
Tell me what mr Powell
said at that meeting.
Well you know, it's not the
way we generally work.
Our advice to the president
is generally kept that way,
private to the president.
The word came
from Washington...
that we're not
getting involved in that
we're not going to
stop the looting...
we're not doing
police work...
that's not what
we're here for.
And I think...
So there were explicit
instructions from Washington...
to not interfere
with the looting.
Yes.
The looting of Baghdad quickly transformed
inno organized, violent, large scale
destruction of the city.
Hospitals, governmental offices,
universities, ministries...
One CPA estimate had the
cost of the looting
at 12 billion dollars (i.e 12,000 million).
That was the revenue for Iraq
... in 2003-2004.
I picked up a newspaper today
... and I couldn't belive it.
I read... 8 headlines...
that talked about...
" Chaos! Violence! Unrest! ".
And it just was "henny-penny"
the sky is falling.
Just imagine the room/the suite
that we're sitting in.
and all that you have
is concrete walls
everything is gone.
We're talking of people comming
in with industrial cranes...
and walking off with
parts of a power plant.
Think what's happening
in our cities...
when we've had riots
and problems...and looting
Stuff happens!
This was not just people
stealing stuff from grocery stores.
I mean, this was people
chipping concrete, walls...
into little pieces so they could
take the rebar out.
The images you were
seeing on television
you were seeing over and
over and over,
and it's the
same picture.
Of some person walking out of
some building with a vase.
I think that was probably the day
that we lost the Iraqis.
You think "my goodness" ,
were there that many vases?
It is possible that there were
that many vases in the whole country?
Thats when it became
very clear, that...
this liberation realy didn't
have anything to do
with the average Iraqi.
There was a belief that the Americans
actually encouraged the looting
or wanted it to happen.
The destruction of
our country.
How could they
let this happen?
So wether you're suni or chia..
you're outraged about the looting.
We had done... a list
of 20 sites...
that we thought needed
to be protected.
Historical, culturel,
artistic, religious
And we had provided that
and it realy made no difference, what so ever.
The oil ministry, was the only major facility
protected by the US Military.
None of the sites on ORHA's
list were protected.
The Iraq National Museum in Baghdad...
number one on ORHA's list...
contained some of the worlds
most important artefacts...
of early human civilization.
The museum was never protected.
It is a property of our nation,
and the treasure of 7.000
years of civilization.
Why do they allow it?
Iraq's National Library
and National Archives...
containing thousands of ancient
manuscripts... where burnt down.
All what was written
was keeping in this library.
Now we have no national heritage.
Three days ago...
me and the doctor Jabar Khalil...
chairman of the
State Board of Antiquities,
went to the headquarter
of the marine in the Hotel Palestine.
We waited there for
about four hours...
til we met a
colonel there.
And at that day, he promised that
he would send armored cars...
to protect what's
left from the museum.
Three days ago, til now
nobody came.
To try to lay off the fact
of that... unfortunate...
activity...
on a defect in a war plan...
it strikes me as stretch.
Would you urge specifically,
by scolars and others,...
about the danger to that museum
and what you urged to...
provide a greater level of
protection and security...
in the initial phases of the operation?
Not to my knowledge.
No one can claim that they where
caught by surprised by the looting.
I just don't think they wanted to know.
They didn't wanna hear it.
In the months leading up
to the invasion...
a debate over troop levels
required in Iraq...
had been privately brewing
between military leadship...
and Donald Rumsfeld.
Rumsfeld and his depute
Paul Wolfowitz...
believed that a force of under
100.000 troops, would be sufficient.
for the invasion and
occupation of Iraq.
A month before the invasion...
the fight over troop levels
became public...
as the Chief of Staff
of the Army, Eric Shinseki...
testified before the
Senate Arms Services Committee...
ignoring pressure from
Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz.
General Shinseki...
could you give us some
ideas to the magnitude
of the army's force requiremnt
for an occupation of Iraq?
Somthing on the order of
several 100,000 soldiers are...
um... are .. are probably...
you know I figure that
would be required
Reaction was immediate.
What is, I think
reasonable cerain here is...
the idea that it would take several 100,000 US forces...
I think is far
from the mark.
It's hard to conceive that
it would take more forces...
to provide stability
on postwar Iraq...
than it would take to conduct
the war itself...
and to secure the surender
of Saddam's security forces in his army.
Hard to imagine.
Hard to imagine.
Anyone who had any experience in...
in the interventions
of the 90s, knew...
that the opposite was true.
You need... X number of soldiers
per thousand citizens...
simply to provide...
a modicum of security.
But Paul Wolfowitz
couldn't imagine it.
Paul Wolfowitz refused
to be interviewed for this film.
We're talking about....
of post hostilities
control over a piece of geography...
that's fairly significant with a...
the kinds of ethnic tension...
that could lead to a...
other problems
and so it takes significant
ground force presence...
Did general Shinseki get it right?
He was asked for his
best military opinion,
and his experience
exceeds mine.
He commanded
our forces in Bosnia.
He did it for a year plus.
He knows what
he's talking about.
Secretary Powell and to the
same extent myself...
we argued for more and more troops...
and we made some difference..
but ultimately...it didn't seem that
we made enough of a difference.
Rumsfeld eventually sent a force of
160,000 troops to Iraq.
Personally I feel the war
would be going differently
if you had a..hm...
leadership that really understood...
#1 What it's... like to be on the ground
had actually served
in the armed forces...
and...
#2 really had a good...
manegerial (ministerial) grasp
of making this thing work.
The senior administration officials...
who overruled the
military and state department...
had no experience with
postwar reconstruction effords...
and little or no military experience.
Cheney avoided
the military service in Vietnam...
thru five draft affirmants.
Rumsfeld was a navy pilot in 1950,
but had nevver seen combat.
Wolfowitz and Rice had
never served in the military.
Bush had avoided the Vietnam draft...
by joining the
Texas National Air Guard.
He also had no foreign policy experience
prior... to becoming president.
We were looking at it,
I say "we", those of us...
who had military experience...
and we would talk
abot this often...
this doesn't look good.
In mid April 2003, with the
looting still under way.
Rumsfeld cancelled the deployment
of the First Cavalry Division
A force of 16.000 soldiers.
It chocked us.
How can you turn off that division?
If we've had that division
following us into Iraq...
we would have stabilized
a lot more of Iraq...
just to our presence.
On April 19th,
ORHA finally entered Iraq...
to begin postwar operations.
Of the 20 ministries
we wanted to bring back
16 of those buildings were destroyed
as a function of looting...
We were starting
from zero.
I mean, if there are no desks,
no chairs and no typwriters left...
Where do we go and meet the Iraqis
to start working?
Ther was no
structure left.
Physical structure or
bureaucratic structure.
I had put people out on the street
walking around asking:
" Do you know anybody in medicin...
ministry of Health...Interior...Education...?"
Within the group itself,
we had...
I think probably five who
spoke any amount of Arabic.
We had no phone list...
We had no phones
for a while...
so I guess having no phone list
was not really that important.
We had no information,
we had no place to go...
we did not know
who to contact.
Not the best way to...
Not the best way to
start an occupation.
And what followed was...
this pervasive
sense of lawlessness
that Iraq never
recovered from
And guys with the
guns took over...
and they were the Iraqi
guys with the guns.
THE VOID
The fire fights
I got cought up in..
were not fire fights where
Americans were being attacked
it was Iraqi on Iraqi fire fights.
You just be driving down
the street and suddenly...
there a fusel out of fire
that just opens up on you.
and you're just in the middle of
these guys shooting at each other.
The streets were chaotic.
People could kill
and get away with it.
There was no
working police force.
Just prior ... the invasion...
Saddam released about
a 100.000 prisoners...
common criminals, from the jails.
In February, 2003...
I got an invitation, to come and
brief the advisory panel
led by advising
secretary Rumsfeld...
on defense policy matters.
What I told them
was that...
based on our experiences in
previous peace operations...
and what had happened
in Iraq historically
it was very likely that
if the USA intervened...
in captured Baghdad,
that we were likely to face...
massive civil disturbances.
I suggested that we needed about
2500 constabulary forces. officers...
About 4000 civil police
street cops.
And then teams of judicial advisers
and corrections officers.
In the end they...
agreed that this
was a good idea...
there was'nt enough time,
but maby for the next war.
Prior to the war,
the Baghdad morgue received...
one murder case a month.
Within a month, the were getting about
25 a day.
They were seeing rapes,
..often for the first time..,
rapes and murders.
Iraqi girls were
being kidnapped.
Iraqi women disappeared
from the streets...
they stopped going to the school,
the stopped driving.
The Americans were not
acting as the police.
They didn't know the streets of Baghdad,
they didn't speak the language...
they didn't have interpreters
in sufficient numbers
They didn't have intelligence
about what was going on.
So...it was a
free for all.
and you just felt
of... a void here.
Very quickley, the mosque... came in
and filled the vacuum...
that the Americans created
by getting rid of Saddam and
leavinhg nothing in it's place.
In Shiite neighborhoods
they very quickley,... established control,
in particulary the clerics
associated with Muqtada al-Sadr.
Muqtada al-Sadr was the son
of a famous Shiite clerick,
and started a bid for power
based on his fathers network,
of mosques and charities.
As I said, the small Satan has left,
and the great Satan has come.
The exit of the occupation
and their withdrawal
is a victory for Iraq
and for the Iraqi people.
Only a few days after American
troops entered Baghdad...
he assassinated a
pro-American Shiite leader.
Then he began creating a
heavily armed militia,...
the Mahdi Army...
which took over
Baghdad's shiite ghetto
and much of
southern Iraq.
If you tended to
the issues of policing...
if there hadn't been
the looting...
then you wouldn't have people
turning to sectarian militias...
as their sources of
neighborhood security.
ORHA worked on recalling
the Iraqi military...
to deal with the
security vacuum.
The army central command,
CENTCOM, supported this policy.
What CENTCOM had done, they had
factored into their planig,
in bringing back
the Iraqi army.
They used Iraqi army
to seal the borders...
to provide static security
for things...
and also help in the reconstruction
of their own nation.
But on April 23, 2003,
Jay Garner received a phone call.
Rumsfeld called me
and he said, hey Jay...
"I like everything what's going on,"
"You'r doing a great job,
you and your team"
"I'm glad you'r in
Baghdad, and all that"
"by the way, the president
is supporting...ah...
"Jerry Bremer..."
"as the presidential envoy."
Bremer was a former
foreign service officer.
Like most officials
sent to Iraq...
Bremer did not speak Arabic...
had no previous experience
with the Mid East...
or postwar reconstruction...
and had never served
in the military.
After Bremers' arrival ,
ORHA would be fased out
and the
Coalition Provisional Authority, CPA...
would take its place.
We intend to
have a very...
effective, efficient and well organized hand-over.
General Garner and I, are...
pledged to working
very closely together.
He has done an
outstandig job.
We set up a series
of brief inform
he spent a day going through
what everybody was doing
and he took charge.
I came home, like,
3rd, 4th or 5th of June.
Between May 1st and his departure
for Iraq on May 10th,
Bremer worked at
the Pentagon...
and met frequently
with Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz...
and undersecretary
Doug Feith.
Bremer also worked closely
with Walter Slocombe...
a former undersecretary
of Defense...
whom Rumsfeld had appointed to
be in charge of postwar policy
for Iraqs military.
They contacted me in mid March 2003.
Did it cross your mind to think...
isn't it kind of late for them to be thinking about this
Yes.
- Did you tell them that?
- No.
Like Bremer...
Slocombe had never
served in the military...
had never been to Iraq...
had no postwar
reconstruction experience...
and no Arabic.
In Bremer's first
10 days at work...
while still in Washington DC...
he made three
fateful policy decisions.
His 1st decision was to stop
the formation of an
iterim Iraqi government.
Even though Jay Garner
had been workig to establish one.
Jay Garner was
certainly suportive...
for getting some
governing body for Iraqi's, but...
this was done away with
on the way to Baghdad
and I didn't think
general Garner knew
about it beforehand...
and nor did I.
We had... expected.
I think I can say
we had been promised...
that there would be a
sovereign government...
virtually immediately.
" I am in charge..."
"and everyone will do
what I say..."
"and... that's it....
Understand?"
And that's kind of the way...
L. Paul Bremer came across.
Much, much, much too...hardcore
and to... mission driven
to see that his
exclusion of the Iraqis...
early on, from major paticipation in
the deccsion making process
it was a grievous error.
L. Paul Bremer refused
to be interviewed for this film.
In May of 2003, we got the...
legal occupation of Iraq.
I said at that time
and I believe now
that, that was a misstake.
We want the
American troops...
basically to leave
Iraq completely...
and let the Iraqi people
basically rule Iraq.
The reaction to his
next two decisions...
would be
dramatically worse.
De-Ba'athification.
I am today establishing an Iraqi
de-Ba'athification counsel.
to ensure
that the structure and
influence of the Ba'ath party...
is elliminated for good.
Bremer's second decision...
his first formal order
as the head of the CPA...
purged an estimated 50.000 members
of the Ba'ath party,
which Saddam had used
to rule Iraq.
For moste, Bremer's order meant
permanent unemployment.
The policy also crippled
Iraqi's government...
educational system
and economy.
Because a purged senior government officials,
who had joined the party simply to
survive under Saddam's regim.
I was walking down the hall and
Ambassador Robin Raphel came to me and said...
- " Have you seen this? ".
- I said, what is it, Robin?
- She says de-Ba'athification
- I said, no.
So I read it realy quick
and I said I...
don't think we can do this.
She says, "well I think you
got to talk to Jerry".
So I went to see him
and said...
How about letting us go through this
and lets get on the phone with Rumsfeld...
and see if we can soften this a little bit
He said: I don't not have that flexibility.
I'v been given my orders, and
want to execute'm.
So that ended
that discussion.
He may have come in...
and spoken to me in great lenght
I just don't remember it,
honestly don't remember it.
You don't remember
these guys
comming in and saying...
this is 30 to 50.000 people,
and ...
my god,
what are you doing?
It was working 20 hours a day
in that period, as well.
This wasn't the only thing
on my...
list of things to do
the first five days I was there.
Bremer appointed Ahmed Chalabi...
to head the de-ba'athification counsel.
Chalabi used the position
to elliminate political rivals.
The de-ba'athification was so deep...
that we wheren't able to get the
government running...
as a efficiently as we should have,
as fast as we should have,
and you had a lot of
disenfranchised ba'athis
What do we want?
Work! Work! Work!
There were people who were
kicked out of there job...
Even though they
were just professionals...
engineers, directors.
The technocrats, the intelligencia...
the elementary school librarianl.
Beeing conquered and
then loosing your job, and...
and not having any means to
support yourself or family...
was an incredibly
humiliating experience.
It was Bremer's
3rd decision however
that was the most explosive.
To disbanding the Iraqi military
and intelligence services...
the most important institutions in Iraq.
CPA-order #2,
disbanded the Iraqi army...
Republican Guard,
Special Republican Guard,
and Secret Police.
Over night Bremer
rended unemployed
and thereby infuriated
half a million armed men...
equivalent to firing
over five million people.
in the United States.
And so these men rather than
helping to prevent an insurgency...
instead created one.
Demonstration by former Iraqi soldiers.
I can't believe they did that.
Hundreds of thousands of families,
depending on the army.
They didn't have an income,
the didn't have providers.
We are hungry, there is no bread,
no food, no money, we want job.
Children, women, wives,
sisters, fathers...
stopped eating because they
didn't have enough money.
Officially. I thinkl it's
27% unemployment... officially
It's almost certainly
much higher.
I would guess anywhere
from 40 to 50 %.
Is it any wonder that
many of these people, who...
almost all had at least
some military training, since...
you had to serve
in the army in Iraq
or they were active military...
would turn to...
joining the insurgency
just as a means to
feed their family.
and as a means of regaining
some of that pride.
In deciding to disband
the Iraqi military
Bremer was undoing a policy
supported by both the
US military and by ORHA.
Paul Hughes had a team...
that was seeking out the Iraqi army...
and he's beginning to
find a lot of them...
and he had found
a lot of them.
And we had made overtours
to bring them back.
These soldiers, when they
registred had to sign...
or fill out
a questionnaire...
about who they were,
what unit they were with,
what they did,
what their skills were
what military equipment
they had at home...
just... a lot of information...
that would have been
useful to us.
And I was collecting
all of that.
But the DoD advisory team
in charge of
dealing with the
Iraqi military...
headed by
Walter Slocombe...
had remained in Washington DC
and had never visited Iraq.
I said, I don't see any
reason to go out there.
I can get ready better,
here in Washington.
And I urged them
time and again...
in my conversations
with them from Baghdad...
that they needed to
get over there.
Because there were
people waiting ON THEM...
and on one man in particular...,
to show up
so he could make decisions
and get the ball rolling.
In his absence,...
I was left with
the duty of
having to deal with
the Iraqi army...
just to keep
contact with them.
The Iraqi army was essentially
standing there... waiting.
They were waiting
for an overture.
They were waiting for what
they thought would happen...
that someone would
come to them and say...
"This is the plan",...
" and you are integral
to that plan..."
"and we need you."
No one ever
did that.
When the war was over...
when the major maneuver
fighting was over...
There were simply no units...
still in existence.
Everybody had
gone home.
Generals and commanders were
coming back with entire divisions
saying here are
my people.
One of the Iraqi officers...
towards the end of ...
the second or
the third meeting, when...
Baghdad was going,...
it was in chaos...
said...
" Colonel Paul,... I can have
10.000 military police men,
"for you next week,
you just tell me."
I took that back to
Bernie Kerik's staff
and nothing was
done with it.
Instead, Bremer issued the disbanding order
Five days after,
Bremmer issued his order.
we were farewelling Jay Garner...
because it was going to leave Iraq...
for good the next day.
We had two Humvee's
on the highway...
hanging out from
the Green Zone...
and they were ambushed and
two soldiers were killed
And that was when, in my mind,
the insurgency began.
We go, go, go!
We go, go, go!
My colleagues and I
could sit on the...
balcony or on the roof of the
Republican Palace, at night
and we could watch the tracers
throughout Baghdad.
We could watch the flares
of different colors that went up...
marking... where American convoys
of certain compositions...
were moving,
and being followed
by the insurgents.
*>
The...
great respect that I have...
for your leadership, mister President...
in this...
little understood
unfamiliar...war
The first war in the 21st century.
It is not well known, it was not
well understood...
It is complex for people
to comprehend...
and I know with certainty
that over time...
the...
contributions you made,
will be recorded by history.
NO END IN SIGHT
Thank You
U.S.A
Baghdad, Iraq 2006
We severely condemn criminal
action by U.S forces.
We mourn the catastrophe by
the hands of evil forces.
We demand the execution
of the Wahabi unbelievers
who have the support
of the Americans.
They have been arrested
and admitted their guilt
before all who saw them.
We demand their execution.
On May 1, 2003,
president George W. Bush...
declared an end to major
combat operations in Iraq, and said...
" In the battle of Iraq, the US
and our allies have prevailed. "
Four years later, after over
3,000 american deaths...
and over 20,000
american wounded,...
Iraq has disintegrated
into chaos.
Baghdad suffers from ten
to fifteen bombings a day...
perhaps 50 deceased in act of service...
but I suspect that's
drastically underreported
We're probably catch a third
of what's actually occurring.
Millions of Iraqis have lost
access to drinking water...
sewage treatment and electricity
since the invasion.
Baghdad, a city of 6 million...
has been under an 8 PM curfew
since March of 2006.
Over 3 million Iraqis have fled
to neighbouring countries.
Estimates of the civilian death toll
range as high as 600,000
People who... die are lucky...
But people living,... they are dead
while they're alive.
The west and the north of Iraq
are controlled by the insurgents.
The rest of Iraq
is controlled by the militias.
Iraq's two major moslem groups, the
Chiít majority and Sunni minority...
are increasingly in war.
They executed them for being Sunnis.
We have been living together
until this day.
This is an Iranian wave against us.
An Iranian wave.
We are Muslims. How is this possible?
They say they are the Army of Mahdi.
Is this what the Mahdi army does?
Look what he's become.
Open the sack,
let them see his face.
From January, 2003 until January, 2005...
I was a president
of the National Council of Intelligence.
We produced the first national estimate
on the state of the insugency in Iraq.
The estimate delivered
pretty bad news.
It basically laid out
bad, worse and worsed scenarios.
The president
called it guesswork...
and his press spokesman
called it...
Hand-wringing and Nay-saying.
What was only reveling to me
was the president hadn't read it.
This is the history of
America's invasion of Iraq.
It is a story in which many people
tried to save a nation.
On September 11, 2001 was a
very clear, bright beautiful day.
I had just come back from
the Pentagon barber-shop.
walked by my office and glanced
up on the TV-screen, and...
there was...
one of the twin-towers
burning.
Pentagon Surveillance Camera
We never heard the plane comming in
at least I didn't.
Suddenly, the whole world
turned upside down.
I saw that fire-ball... and... I tell you...
I saw that.. and I said to my self
I'm going to die today.
That plane had come directly
under our section of the offices.
The Army budget office.
where 38 Army employees where killed
was directley beneath us.
and the Navy's new command center,
was two floors beneath us
everybody was killed
in those two sections.
This was something Osama Bin Laden
had orchestrated...
because he was the only terrorist
I could think of...
who could have
coordinated this
kind of activity.
- So you had this thought think immediately?
- Immediately. Immediately.
A month after September 11,
the US entered Afghanistan...
in search of Al Qaeda
and of Osama Bin Laden.
But even before the Afghan war
several senior administaration officials...
were looking at
another target.
One that had nothing to do
with the 9/11 attacks.
When the plane(s ?) hit the Pentagon,
I was in the building.
And then...I guess the next...
big thing that sort of happened, was we...
immidialely got tasked...
to see if we could draw
any relationship
between Saddam and Al Qaeda.
I went right away to the...
to the counter
terrorism...group...
to their chief Iraqi analyst..
And the two of us
sat down over a few days...
and looked at... all the historical reportning
that we could go through
In which you conclude?
Well we concluded that
there was no relation.
His regime aids and protects terrorists,
including members of Al Qaeda.
We continue to watch Iraq's involment
in terrorist activities.
What I want to bring
to your attention today, is...
the potentially much more
sinister nexus between...
Iraq and the Al Qaeda
terrorist network.
We don't want the smoking gun
to be a mushroom cloud.
Iraq has drones
and they'ar gonna take this drones
and put them on this ships
and they'ar gona arm the drones with...
chemical biological weapon...
and they'ar gona fly
these drones of the ships...
and attack the
east coast of US.
You know, this is
absolut fantasy land.
I don't know what
they were smoking...
but it must have
been very good.
George W. Bush's,
foreign policy inner circle.
Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz...
set the administration on course
for war with Iraq.
Condolezza Rice
sided with them.
Colin Powell and Richard Armitage...
the only senior officials
with combat experience...
expressed concerns privately....
but supported the
administration in public.
HISTORY
Bush's advisors had
been involved with Saddam Hussein...
since he invaded Iran in 1980...
in a brutal war that killed
nearly a million people.
Iraq used chemical weapon...
against both the Iranian military
and innocent civilans.
Saddam invested
billions (n x 10^9) of dollars...
in nuclear, chemical and biological
weapons programs
while murdering 300,000
of his own citizens.
But the Reagan administration, fearing Iran
supported Saddam with military
intelligence and economic aid.
Donald Rumsfeld met
with Saddam in 1983.
Colin Powell was Reagan's
national security advisor
from 1987 to 1989.
The 80s really summed up...
in a dreadfull...
but very very telling
State Departement document...
from 1987...
which said...
human rights and chemical weapons
used aside,...
our interest run roughly
parallell to those of Iraq.
The Iran - Iraq war ends
in stalemate in 1988.
In 1990, Saddam invades Kuwait.
A US lead coalition
expelles him...
in a war masterminded by
Dick Cheney, then Secretary of Defense...
Paul Wolfowitz, then Under Secretary of Defense for Policy...
and Colin Powell, then Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The first President Bush urges the Iraqi's
to stage a coup against Saddam.
There is another way
for the bloodshed to stop...
and that is for the Iraqi military
and the Iraqi people...
to take matters into their own hands
and force Saddam Hussein,
the dictator....
to step aside...
Yet when Iraq's southern
Shiit's rise up
the administration allows
Saddam to repress them
14... out of Iraq's 18 govenors (provinces)...
where under rebel control...
when general Schwartzkopf...
allowed... Saddam Hussein
to use...
helicopter gunships...
to massacre... the rebels...,
men, women and children.
The 1991 armistice requires
Iraq to disarm.
but Saddam refuses
to comply.
As a results Iraq's
economy crumbles
under a UN embargo
instituted in 1993
and continued by the
Clinton administration
Saddam's favored elite
remain welthy
but ordinary Iraqis are
plunged into extreme poverty
and many turned
fundamentalist Islam
In 1993, when
George Bush senior visits Kuwait...
Saddam attempts to assissnate him.
Seven years later, his son
is elected president of the US.
When you see the same architects
of those policies...
on the one hand,
talking about
getting right what they had
gotten wrong, back in 1991, you know...
finishing the job.
I was tempting to say,
well... mybe they've learned.
Saddam Hussein and his sons...
must leave Iraq within 48 hours.
A refusal to do so,
will result in military conflict...
commenced...
at a time of our choosing.
NATIONAL SECURITY
PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE - NUMBER 24
If you want to date the beginning of the
disaster of postwar Iraq...
it would be
January 20, 2003...
when Bush signed without,
as far as I can tell...
any real discussion within the
White House or the administration...
National Security
Presidential Directive - Number 24
which gave control of postwar Iraq
to the Pentagon.
That document essentially made
Donald Rumsfeld...
the main actor
on postwar Iraq.
This war was conceived by a very
small group of people inside
the Bush administration.
they had an entirely and naive
vision of what Iraq was
and what Iraqis would do
once the regime fell.
In formulating its views on
post-saddam Iraq
the administration relied
heavily on a man named Ahmed Chalabi.
Since 1992,
Chalabi had been president...
of the Iraqi National Congress, or INC.
Widely viewed with
suspicion.
Chalabi had been convicted in Jordan
over a huge bank fraud.
The intelligence comunity found
his information unreliable...
or even fraudulent.
At best I think...
they were liars.
and at worst,
they were provocateurs.
If it's an INC source...
it was always looked at
very very sceptically...
by the analyst.
But that wasn't the case
with policy makers.
Chalabi asserted that postwar Iraq
would be pro-american
and easily stabilized...
particularly if Chalabi
himself was in charge
And so the plan was, essetially...
we'll stay for three or four months
we will install... a goverment made up
of exiles..
and lead by Ahmed Chalabi...
and then, in August or September, 2003...
we will begin...a drastic
reduction of troops.
Larry Di Rita addressed us
in one form and said
by the end of August, 2003...
we will have all but
25 to 30,000 troops out of Iraq.
I heard him say that
in a room full of people
And I turned to my colleagues
I said this guy doesn't know
what he's talking about
It's physically impossible.
The Future project of Iraq
of the department of the state...
a 13 volume study on
postwar Iraq...
was ignored by the Pentagon.
It was an awful lot of
thinking at state department
boards feet of volumes
on how we should do this.
Almost non of this...
was integrated in the
Pentagons thinking.
Secretaries frustration,
along with my own, grew
as we watched our carefull planning,
our detailed planning...
essentially discarded...
and the people involved in it,
essentially discarded
so that more loyal...
in line with the the republican
party's view and so forth...
people could be apointed
key positions in Iraq.
THE WAR
At this hour,...
American and coalition forces
are in the early stages of
military operations...
to disarm Iraq,
to free its people...
and to defend the world
from great danger.
I joined the Marine because I always
thought it as a really important job...
and didn't feel I'll be content
with myself going through life
knowing that other people
had fought for my freedom.
I joined the army to ah...
support my country...and ah...
thought it was a good thang
to do, ya know...
It was...
an honor...
To go there and help my
fellow soldiers...
to do...
what they telled us
to go and do there
maybe... take out a... dictator...
out of the... power...
to reestablish
the democracy.
I just... was waiting for
the war to happen
because it was the...
the only ray of hope I had
to look for...
And when it happened,
I was... excited,
that things would move slowly...
but... towards
better circumstances.
Thank you, mister Bush.
We very like mister Bush!
Not, not to Saddam! Yes, yes to Bush!
Not, not to Saddam! Yes, yes to Bush!
Oh people, look what
he's done,
look what he's done to Iraq!
It was a confusing,
laud, noisy...
scarry, hopefull place
all kind of wrapped up together.
I would se kids with...ski caps on
that would say FBI across it.
They were giving me
the big thumbs up
And other young men...
who probably were fedayin,
in civilian clothes
giving me very
hard stares...and...
kind of sizing
me up and...
always looking at the
licens plate of the car.
The Iraqis were...waiting to see
what this was going to bring them.
The presence of the Americans had not been
rejected...
yet, by the Iraqis.
No Saddam, no Saddam!
I've seen people welcoming
the coalition troops...
Because we thought...
everything is planned,
everything is prepared.
There you go!
During World War 2, the US
started planning the occupation of Germany...
2 years in advance.
But the Bush administration
didn't create the organization...
that would manage the
occupation of Iraq...
until 60 days
before the invasion.
ORHA - Organization for
Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance
Reported directly to
Defense Secretary Rumsfeld.
I got a call from the office of
Secretary Defense...
in late January and
they were life meeting.
Handle humanitarian affairs,
reconstruction.
Retired Army General Jay Garner,
was appoited to run ORHA.
In the first Golf War
he had commsnded 22.000 soldiers...
resposible for humanitarian
operations...
in the Kurdish zone
of northen Iraq.
This time, he would be
running the entire country.
Did you... think you were
prepared to run Iraq.
I don't think we were ever prepared,
I mean...
A task of that magnitude probably
takes years to prepare.
Because nobody had years.
I got a call
on my cellphone
From someone at
the State Department,
telling me that Rich Armitage
was looking for me...
and wanted me back
in Washington,... right now.
Ambassador Barbara Bodine
was placed in charge of Baghdad...
only 3 weeks before the war.
She was a career Foreign Service officer
who had served in Yemen, Iraq...
and had been a hostage
in Kuwait five months...
after Saddam's in 1990.
She was one of the few
State Department middle East experts,
that the Pentagon
allowed into Iraq.
She was one of the
few we could get in.
I thought they initially made a misstake
They thought they had a woman
and she would be an easy mark
But Barbara was the
toughest member of the service.
By 2003, army colonel Paul Hughes...
had worked in the Pentagon
for 6 years...
doing planning and strategy work...
for senior Defense Department officials
I wound up being assigned
to the...
Office of Reconstruction and
Humanitarian assistans...
under Jay Garner.
And I was the director
of strategic policy, for him.
ORHA started work at the Pentagon 50 days
before the invasion of Iraq.
We were given a
sweat off offices
that had been unoccupied
for a couple of years.
Had no computers in it,
you have people showing up daily
asking
"Where do I sit?"
They had no staff.
I had no personnel,
I had nothing from...
either a senior deputy
down to a secretary
There is only one meeting at
the National Defense University.
and it was the...I think
concensus opinion.
of the people who went
to that meeting...
with whom I spoke afterwards.
That hey...
"This is a crazy".
that was our
first meeting...
and we're not given
a hole lot of confidece
by there first meeting...
because, essentially...
we didn't do anything
except meet each other.
It was completely
unstructured.
There were no plans.
There truely were...
no plans.
On the 16th of March, ORHA
flew out to Kuwait City.
we had 167 people
that flew with us.
167 people that were to
essetially become the
government of a
country of 25 millions.
BAGHDAD, APRIL 9th, 2003
After the fall of Baghdad...
we had no idea what really
was gonna happen
and there certainly didn't seem
to be much of a plan
What we generally
were being told
is that we'd be getting
back on the ships
within a month or two... of...,
essentially conquering Iraq.
As American forces entered the capital,
looting broke out everywhere.
While we were in Kuwait, we were as
glued to the TV, as everyone else.
There was the realization...
that there was
absolute lawlessnes
and chaos
going on in Iraq.
The Americans were'nt
doing anything. They....
would... sit at
certain intersections, but...
they wouldn't actually get out of the
HUMV's or out of the tanks
and really do much.
Time passed and we
didn't see any progress.
The only progress we found is
the uncontrolled freedom.
Looters had... to loot all
the govermental buildings
and even private ownd companies.
The looting was partly a
factor of the troop levels...
and the sens that Rumsfeld
communicated to his commanders...
and his commanders
communicated down the chain...
to the...platoon and
compay level.
That... we were not there
to run Iraq.
We were there to get rid
of the regime, and get out.
We are not under
martial law here.
In his order, general McKiernan
was not told...
to establish martial law.
Not once was
martial law declared.
I just...I'll tell you honestly.
We're in a transition period.
I mean, there is an
Iraqi civil law...
but there
is no...
You just heard we just opened up
they first two courts today...
so, I mean when you
starting at nothing
Had martial law been declared,
wich would have been...
authorized under the
4th Geneva Convention...
maby we would have had...
a bit more security.
We are a platoon of marines',
I mean we could...
we could certainly stop
looting, if we...
if that was our
assigned task.
The greatest mystery...
of postwar Iraq
involves that month or so
after the fall of Baghdad...
Why the US didn't do anything to...
to control the looting.
Because in a way...
everything that has been
a problem since then,
started that first month.
People at the
National Security Council
secretary Powell,
myself and others...
CIA director, did express
concern about the looting.
Did you express any concern
to president Bush?
I was at the meeting where it
was expressed by my boss.
Tell me what mr Powell
said at that meeting.
Well you know, it's not the
way we generally work.
Our advice to the president
is generally kept that way,
private to the president.
The word came
from Washington...
that we're not
getting involved in that
we're not going to
stop the looting...
we're not doing
police work...
that's not what
we're here for.
And I think...
So there were explicit
instructions from Washington...
to not interfere
with the looting.
Yes.
The looting of Baghdad quickly transformed
inno organized, violent, large scale
destruction of the city.
Hospitals, governmental offices,
universities, ministries...
One CPA estimate had the
cost of the looting
at 12 billion dollars (i.e 12,000 million).
That was the revenue for Iraq
... in 2003-2004.
I picked up a newspaper today
... and I couldn't belive it.
I read... 8 headlines...
that talked about...
" Chaos! Violence! Unrest! ".
And it just was "henny-penny"
the sky is falling.
Just imagine the room/the suite
that we're sitting in.
and all that you have
is concrete walls
everything is gone.
We're talking of people comming
in with industrial cranes...
and walking off with
parts of a power plant.
Think what's happening
in our cities...
when we've had riots
and problems...and looting
Stuff happens!
This was not just people
stealing stuff from grocery stores.
I mean, this was people
chipping concrete, walls...
into little pieces so they could
take the rebar out.
The images you were
seeing on television
you were seeing over and
over and over,
and it's the
same picture.
Of some person walking out of
some building with a vase.
I think that was probably the day
that we lost the Iraqis.
You think "my goodness" ,
were there that many vases?
It is possible that there were
that many vases in the whole country?
Thats when it became
very clear, that...
this liberation realy didn't
have anything to do
with the average Iraqi.
There was a belief that the Americans
actually encouraged the looting
or wanted it to happen.
The destruction of
our country.
How could they
let this happen?
So wether you're suni or chia..
you're outraged about the looting.
We had done... a list
of 20 sites...
that we thought needed
to be protected.
Historical, culturel,
artistic, religious
And we had provided that
and it realy made no difference, what so ever.
The oil ministry, was the only major facility
protected by the US Military.
None of the sites on ORHA's
list were protected.
The Iraq National Museum in Baghdad...
number one on ORHA's list...
contained some of the worlds
most important artefacts...
of early human civilization.
The museum was never protected.
It is a property of our nation,
and the treasure of 7.000
years of civilization.
Why do they allow it?
Iraq's National Library
and National Archives...
containing thousands of ancient
manuscripts... where burnt down.
All what was written
was keeping in this library.
Now we have no national heritage.
Three days ago...
me and the doctor Jabar Khalil...
chairman of the
State Board of Antiquities,
went to the headquarter
of the marine in the Hotel Palestine.
We waited there for
about four hours...
til we met a
colonel there.
And at that day, he promised that
he would send armored cars...
to protect what's
left from the museum.
Three days ago, til now
nobody came.
To try to lay off the fact
of that... unfortunate...
activity...
on a defect in a war plan...
it strikes me as stretch.
Would you urge specifically,
by scolars and others,...
about the danger to that museum
and what you urged to...
provide a greater level of
protection and security...
in the initial phases of the operation?
Not to my knowledge.
No one can claim that they where
caught by surprised by the looting.
I just don't think they wanted to know.
They didn't wanna hear it.
In the months leading up
to the invasion...
a debate over troop levels
required in Iraq...
had been privately brewing
between military leadship...
and Donald Rumsfeld.
Rumsfeld and his depute
Paul Wolfowitz...
believed that a force of under
100.000 troops, would be sufficient.
for the invasion and
occupation of Iraq.
A month before the invasion...
the fight over troop levels
became public...
as the Chief of Staff
of the Army, Eric Shinseki...
testified before the
Senate Arms Services Committee...
ignoring pressure from
Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz.
General Shinseki...
could you give us some
ideas to the magnitude
of the army's force requiremnt
for an occupation of Iraq?
Somthing on the order of
several 100,000 soldiers are...
um... are .. are probably...
you know I figure that
would be required
Reaction was immediate.
What is, I think
reasonable cerain here is...
the idea that it would take several 100,000 US forces...
I think is far
from the mark.
It's hard to conceive that
it would take more forces...
to provide stability
on postwar Iraq...
than it would take to conduct
the war itself...
and to secure the surender
of Saddam's security forces in his army.
Hard to imagine.
Hard to imagine.
Anyone who had any experience in...
in the interventions
of the 90s, knew...
that the opposite was true.
You need... X number of soldiers
per thousand citizens...
simply to provide...
a modicum of security.
But Paul Wolfowitz
couldn't imagine it.
Paul Wolfowitz refused
to be interviewed for this film.
We're talking about....
of post hostilities
control over a piece of geography...
that's fairly significant with a...
the kinds of ethnic tension...
that could lead to a...
other problems
and so it takes significant
ground force presence...
Did general Shinseki get it right?
He was asked for his
best military opinion,
and his experience
exceeds mine.
He commanded
our forces in Bosnia.
He did it for a year plus.
He knows what
he's talking about.
Secretary Powell and to the
same extent myself...
we argued for more and more troops...
and we made some difference..
but ultimately...it didn't seem that
we made enough of a difference.
Rumsfeld eventually sent a force of
160,000 troops to Iraq.
Personally I feel the war
would be going differently
if you had a..hm...
leadership that really understood...
#1 What it's... like to be on the ground
had actually served
in the armed forces...
and...
#2 really had a good...
manegerial (ministerial) grasp
of making this thing work.
The senior administration officials...
who overruled the
military and state department...
had no experience with
postwar reconstruction effords...
and little or no military experience.
Cheney avoided
the military service in Vietnam...
thru five draft affirmants.
Rumsfeld was a navy pilot in 1950,
but had nevver seen combat.
Wolfowitz and Rice had
never served in the military.
Bush had avoided the Vietnam draft...
by joining the
Texas National Air Guard.
He also had no foreign policy experience
prior... to becoming president.
We were looking at it,
I say "we", those of us...
who had military experience...
and we would talk
abot this often...
this doesn't look good.
In mid April 2003, with the
looting still under way.
Rumsfeld cancelled the deployment
of the First Cavalry Division
A force of 16.000 soldiers.
It chocked us.
How can you turn off that division?
If we've had that division
following us into Iraq...
we would have stabilized
a lot more of Iraq...
just to our presence.
On April 19th,
ORHA finally entered Iraq...
to begin postwar operations.
Of the 20 ministries
we wanted to bring back
16 of those buildings were destroyed
as a function of looting...
We were starting
from zero.
I mean, if there are no desks,
no chairs and no typwriters left...
Where do we go and meet the Iraqis
to start working?
Ther was no
structure left.
Physical structure or
bureaucratic structure.
I had put people out on the street
walking around asking:
" Do you know anybody in medicin...
ministry of Health...Interior...Education...?"
Within the group itself,
we had...
I think probably five who
spoke any amount of Arabic.
We had no phone list...
We had no phones
for a while...
so I guess having no phone list
was not really that important.
We had no information,
we had no place to go...
we did not know
who to contact.
Not the best way to...
Not the best way to
start an occupation.
And what followed was...
this pervasive
sense of lawlessness
that Iraq never
recovered from
And guys with the
guns took over...
and they were the Iraqi
guys with the guns.
THE VOID
The fire fights
I got cought up in..
were not fire fights where
Americans were being attacked
it was Iraqi on Iraqi fire fights.
You just be driving down
the street and suddenly...
there a fusel out of fire
that just opens up on you.
and you're just in the middle of
these guys shooting at each other.
The streets were chaotic.
People could kill
and get away with it.
There was no
working police force.
Just prior ... the invasion...
Saddam released about
a 100.000 prisoners...
common criminals, from the jails.
In February, 2003...
I got an invitation, to come and
brief the advisory panel
led by advising
secretary Rumsfeld...
on defense policy matters.
What I told them
was that...
based on our experiences in
previous peace operations...
and what had happened
in Iraq historically
it was very likely that
if the USA intervened...
in captured Baghdad,
that we were likely to face...
massive civil disturbances.
I suggested that we needed about
2500 constabulary forces. officers...
About 4000 civil police
street cops.
And then teams of judicial advisers
and corrections officers.
In the end they...
agreed that this
was a good idea...
there was'nt enough time,
but maby for the next war.
Prior to the war,
the Baghdad morgue received...
one murder case a month.
Within a month, the were getting about
25 a day.
They were seeing rapes,
..often for the first time..,
rapes and murders.
Iraqi girls were
being kidnapped.
Iraqi women disappeared
from the streets...
they stopped going to the school,
the stopped driving.
The Americans were not
acting as the police.
They didn't know the streets of Baghdad,
they didn't speak the language...
they didn't have interpreters
in sufficient numbers
They didn't have intelligence
about what was going on.
So...it was a
free for all.
and you just felt
of... a void here.
Very quickley, the mosque... came in
and filled the vacuum...
that the Americans created
by getting rid of Saddam and
leavinhg nothing in it's place.
In Shiite neighborhoods
they very quickley,... established control,
in particulary the clerics
associated with Muqtada al-Sadr.
Muqtada al-Sadr was the son
of a famous Shiite clerick,
and started a bid for power
based on his fathers network,
of mosques and charities.
As I said, the small Satan has left,
and the great Satan has come.
The exit of the occupation
and their withdrawal
is a victory for Iraq
and for the Iraqi people.
Only a few days after American
troops entered Baghdad...
he assassinated a
pro-American Shiite leader.
Then he began creating a
heavily armed militia,...
the Mahdi Army...
which took over
Baghdad's shiite ghetto
and much of
southern Iraq.
If you tended to
the issues of policing...
if there hadn't been
the looting...
then you wouldn't have people
turning to sectarian militias...
as their sources of
neighborhood security.
ORHA worked on recalling
the Iraqi military...
to deal with the
security vacuum.
The army central command,
CENTCOM, supported this policy.
What CENTCOM had done, they had
factored into their planig,
in bringing back
the Iraqi army.
They used Iraqi army
to seal the borders...
to provide static security
for things...
and also help in the reconstruction
of their own nation.
But on April 23, 2003,
Jay Garner received a phone call.
Rumsfeld called me
and he said, hey Jay...
"I like everything what's going on,"
"You'r doing a great job,
you and your team"
"I'm glad you'r in
Baghdad, and all that"
"by the way, the president
is supporting...ah...
"Jerry Bremer..."
"as the presidential envoy."
Bremer was a former
foreign service officer.
Like most officials
sent to Iraq...
Bremer did not speak Arabic...
had no previous experience
with the Mid East...
or postwar reconstruction...
and had never served
in the military.
After Bremers' arrival ,
ORHA would be fased out
and the
Coalition Provisional Authority, CPA...
would take its place.
We intend to
have a very...
effective, efficient and well organized hand-over.
General Garner and I, are...
pledged to working
very closely together.
He has done an
outstandig job.
We set up a series
of brief inform
he spent a day going through
what everybody was doing
and he took charge.
I came home, like,
3rd, 4th or 5th of June.
Between May 1st and his departure
for Iraq on May 10th,
Bremer worked at
the Pentagon...
and met frequently
with Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz...
and undersecretary
Doug Feith.
Bremer also worked closely
with Walter Slocombe...
a former undersecretary
of Defense...
whom Rumsfeld had appointed to
be in charge of postwar policy
for Iraqs military.
They contacted me in mid March 2003.
Did it cross your mind to think...
isn't it kind of late for them to be thinking about this
Yes.
- Did you tell them that?
- No.
Like Bremer...
Slocombe had never
served in the military...
had never been to Iraq...
had no postwar
reconstruction experience...
and no Arabic.
In Bremer's first
10 days at work...
while still in Washington DC...
he made three
fateful policy decisions.
His 1st decision was to stop
the formation of an
iterim Iraqi government.
Even though Jay Garner
had been workig to establish one.
Jay Garner was
certainly suportive...
for getting some
governing body for Iraqi's, but...
this was done away with
on the way to Baghdad
and I didn't think
general Garner knew
about it beforehand...
and nor did I.
We had... expected.
I think I can say
we had been promised...
that there would be a
sovereign government...
virtually immediately.
" I am in charge..."
"and everyone will do
what I say..."
"and... that's it....
Understand?"
And that's kind of the way...
L. Paul Bremer came across.
Much, much, much too...hardcore
and to... mission driven
to see that his
exclusion of the Iraqis...
early on, from major paticipation in
the deccsion making process
it was a grievous error.
L. Paul Bremer refused
to be interviewed for this film.
In May of 2003, we got the...
legal occupation of Iraq.
I said at that time
and I believe now
that, that was a misstake.
We want the
American troops...
basically to leave
Iraq completely...
and let the Iraqi people
basically rule Iraq.
The reaction to his
next two decisions...
would be
dramatically worse.
De-Ba'athification.
I am today establishing an Iraqi
de-Ba'athification counsel.
to ensure
that the structure and
influence of the Ba'ath party...
is elliminated for good.
Bremer's second decision...
his first formal order
as the head of the CPA...
purged an estimated 50.000 members
of the Ba'ath party,
which Saddam had used
to rule Iraq.
For moste, Bremer's order meant
permanent unemployment.
The policy also crippled
Iraqi's government...
educational system
and economy.
Because a purged senior government officials,
who had joined the party simply to
survive under Saddam's regim.
I was walking down the hall and
Ambassador Robin Raphel came to me and said...
- " Have you seen this? ".
- I said, what is it, Robin?
- She says de-Ba'athification
- I said, no.
So I read it realy quick
and I said I...
don't think we can do this.
She says, "well I think you
got to talk to Jerry".
So I went to see him
and said...
How about letting us go through this
and lets get on the phone with Rumsfeld...
and see if we can soften this a little bit
He said: I don't not have that flexibility.
I'v been given my orders, and
want to execute'm.
So that ended
that discussion.
He may have come in...
and spoken to me in great lenght
I just don't remember it,
honestly don't remember it.
You don't remember
these guys
comming in and saying...
this is 30 to 50.000 people,
and ...
my god,
what are you doing?
It was working 20 hours a day
in that period, as well.
This wasn't the only thing
on my...
list of things to do
the first five days I was there.
Bremer appointed Ahmed Chalabi...
to head the de-ba'athification counsel.
Chalabi used the position
to elliminate political rivals.
The de-ba'athification was so deep...
that we wheren't able to get the
government running...
as a efficiently as we should have,
as fast as we should have,
and you had a lot of
disenfranchised ba'athis
What do we want?
Work! Work! Work!
There were people who were
kicked out of there job...
Even though they
were just professionals...
engineers, directors.
The technocrats, the intelligencia...
the elementary school librarianl.
Beeing conquered and
then loosing your job, and...
and not having any means to
support yourself or family...
was an incredibly
humiliating experience.
It was Bremer's
3rd decision however
that was the most explosive.
To disbanding the Iraqi military
and intelligence services...
the most important institutions in Iraq.
CPA-order #2,
disbanded the Iraqi army...
Republican Guard,
Special Republican Guard,
and Secret Police.
Over night Bremer
rended unemployed
and thereby infuriated
half a million armed men...
equivalent to firing
over five million people.
in the United States.
And so these men rather than
helping to prevent an insurgency...
instead created one.
Demonstration by former Iraqi soldiers.
I can't believe they did that.
Hundreds of thousands of families,
depending on the army.
They didn't have an income,
the didn't have providers.
We are hungry, there is no bread,
no food, no money, we want job.
Children, women, wives,
sisters, fathers...
stopped eating because they
didn't have enough money.
Officially. I thinkl it's
27% unemployment... officially
It's almost certainly
much higher.
I would guess anywhere
from 40 to 50 %.
Is it any wonder that
many of these people, who...
almost all had at least
some military training, since...
you had to serve
in the army in Iraq
or they were active military...
would turn to...
joining the insurgency
just as a means to
feed their family.
and as a means of regaining
some of that pride.
In deciding to disband
the Iraqi military
Bremer was undoing a policy
supported by both the
US military and by ORHA.
Paul Hughes had a team...
that was seeking out the Iraqi army...
and he's beginning to
find a lot of them...
and he had found
a lot of them.
And we had made overtours
to bring them back.
These soldiers, when they
registred had to sign...
or fill out
a questionnaire...
about who they were,
what unit they were with,
what they did,
what their skills were
what military equipment
they had at home...
just... a lot of information...
that would have been
useful to us.
And I was collecting
all of that.
But the DoD advisory team
in charge of
dealing with the
Iraqi military...
headed by
Walter Slocombe...
had remained in Washington DC
and had never visited Iraq.
I said, I don't see any
reason to go out there.
I can get ready better,
here in Washington.
And I urged them
time and again...
in my conversations
with them from Baghdad...
that they needed to
get over there.
Because there were
people waiting ON THEM...
and on one man in particular...,
to show up
so he could make decisions
and get the ball rolling.
In his absence,...
I was left with
the duty of
having to deal with
the Iraqi army...
just to keep
contact with them.
The Iraqi army was essentially
standing there... waiting.
They were waiting
for an overture.
They were waiting for what
they thought would happen...
that someone would
come to them and say...
"This is the plan",...
" and you are integral
to that plan..."
"and we need you."
No one ever
did that.
When the war was over...
when the major maneuver
fighting was over...
There were simply no units...
still in existence.
Everybody had
gone home.
Generals and commanders were
coming back with entire divisions
saying here are
my people.
One of the Iraqi officers...
towards the end of ...
the second or
the third meeting, when...
Baghdad was going,...
it was in chaos...
said...
" Colonel Paul,... I can have
10.000 military police men,
"for you next week,
you just tell me."
I took that back to
Bernie Kerik's staff
and nothing was
done with it.
Instead, Bremer issued the disbanding order
Five days after,
Bremmer issued his order.
we were farewelling Jay Garner...
because it was going to leave Iraq...
for good the next day.
We had two Humvee's
on the highway...
hanging out from
the Green Zone...
and they were ambushed and
two soldiers were killed
And that was when, in my mind,
the insurgency began.
We go, go, go!
We go, go, go!
My colleagues and I
could sit on the...
balcony or on the roof of the
Republican Palace, at night
and we could watch the tracers
throughout Baghdad.
We could watch the flares
of different colors that went up...
marking... where American convoys
of certain compositions...
were moving,
and being followed
by the insurgents.
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